LONDON – Tottenham Hotspur might have sacked their manager after an extraordinary outburst and then lost their managing director of football Fabio Paratici to a worldwide Fifa ban, but their interim boss Cristian Stellini refuses to entertain talk of a crisis.

Stellini, who was Antonio Conte’s assistant before he was dismissed last week, said his experience in coaching refugees in 2012 meant his perspective on what constitutes a crisis was different.

At that time he was handed an 18-month ban as part of wide-ranging punishments meted out for the “Calcioscommesse” match-fixing scandal in Italy and was unable to work in professional football.

Having been forced to step back from his role as part of Juventus’ backroom staff, he decided to coach a Turin team of refugees and asylum seekers named the Survivors.

He teared up speaking about the experience in his pre-match press conference ahead of the English Premier League trip to Everton on Monday.

Said the Italian: “You cannot feel it’s a crisis when you have a club around you, when you have fans around you. Crisis is a different thing. Crisis means you cannot play football. When we had Covid, that was a crisis for everyone. It’s a crisis when you don’t have fans in your stadium.

“But now we play, we have everything, we have 10 games to play and the club can take a decision in the future. We feel at home here. Crisis? It is speculation to try to punch Tottenham, this is what it is.”

On his stint with the Survivors, he said: “It’s very emotional, talking about that experience. It allowed me to grow as a man, not as a professional, because they were not professional, they were refugees. They tried to have something new in their life...

“We had 35 people coming onto the pitch without shoes, with socks and they said, ‘I can train?’. We said, ‘Yes, you can, obviously, but you need shoes’. They said, ‘Shoes? I play without shoes’. We said, ‘How can you play without shoes against players with studs? It’s dangerous for you’. ‘No, it’s not dangerous, don’t worry’.

“I remember there was one from Afghanistan, many from Morocco, a lot from Ghana, DR Congo, many more from Africa... I won with them a tournament called Mundialito in Turin... but we won with a goalkeeper with one eye.”

Stellini says he remains in touch with some of the team, proudly sharing that one of them now has a degree in chemical engineering.

Oumarou Pountugnigni, a former Survivors player, once told La Stampa of Stellini: “He was a defender like me. He taught me the tricks but above all he taught me that nothing is impossible. The three in defence can block 10 men if they want to.”