Tel was subjected to racist abuse on social media after missing in the shoot-out defeat by Paris St-Germain in August. But it did not stop him stepping up again to score from the spot for France Under-21s last week and Tel has pledged to volunteer to take another Spurs penalty in the future.
Referencing Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers basketball player who died in 2020, Tel tells Telegraph Sport: “I will take a penalty again and if we go again to play in the Super Cup next year, I will take it again. No fear.
“I love Kobe Bryant and I always read what he did and he was always about trying, trying. You need to try to have success. You are going to make mistakes to have success, so I’m OK with mistakes. I’m OK if I don’t score goals because I’m going to be back and next time I will score.”
Sadly, the racist abuse he suffered after missing a penalty did not come as a surprise to Tel, who had been through a similar situation before with his former club Bayern Munich. He believes social media companies need to do more to address the issue.
“I was not very shocked, but these types of bad comments still hurt you,” says Tel. “It was the same at Bayern Munich after a game on social media. That’s why, today, I just try to protect myself – don’t read, don’t listen, just be focused on what I do. Work, work, work every day.
“I think the social media companies need to do more because social media is very open. So if I want to be a bad guy, I just need to create an account with another name and I can say a lot of bad things. It’s too easy to be disrespectful with a lot of people. So, yeah, just try to protect us, protect the kids, protect everybody because nobody deserves that.”
Asked if the experience made him think twice about taking a penalty for France Under-21s so soon afterwards, Tel replies: “Yes. But I was like. ‘I will try again another time. I will try again, I will try again’. So that’s what I did. For sure, the pressure was there, but it’s always about the confidence. In my mind, I was thinking ‘I don’t want to miss the shot again’. So, I shot and scored.”
Tel clearly relished the chance to create memories for the classroom of pupils he spent time with during a session run by the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation. As well as giving up his time, he paid for 40 Spurs shirts that he handed out to children and signed.
