There is a particular kind of interview that tells you everything within the first thirty seconds. Cathinka Tandberg does not ease you into her feelings about Saturday's north London derby. She does not reach for diplomatic language or the careful neutrality you sometimes get from players who have only recently arrived at a club. She grew up a Spurs fan, she plays for Spurs now, and Arsenal are coming to town. The passion is not performed. It radiates.
She Already Knew What It Meant
"It means more than just three points. It's for the whole club. It's for the whole place. It's for the whole of Tottenham." That is how Tandberg opens. No preamble, no warming up. And honestly, that kind of unfiltered clarity is rarer than it should be in professional football, where media training tends to sand the edges off anything that might cause a headline.
What makes it land harder is the context. Tandberg is 22 years old, Norwegian, and only made her move to London in September 2025. By most measures, she is still finding her feet in the WSL. But this particular piece of football culture, the hatred between north London's two clubs, required no acclimatisation whatsoever. She walked in already carrying it. You cannot teach that. You either feel the derby or you do not, and Tandberg very clearly does.
"All the Spurs fans hate Arsenal and Arsenal hate Spurs," she says. "That's how it is. You want to show that you're the best team. Simple as that. You just want to fight for the club, the badge and for the people around you." That sentence, "that's how it is," does the most work. There is no apology in it, no qualification. It is a statement of fact delivered by someone who has been in the stands and knows exactly what that atmosphere does to people.
From Linköping to London
The journey that brought Tandberg to this point is worth taking seriously, because it is not the usual path. She came up through Swedish football, first at Linköping and then at Hammarby, building a reputation as a goalscorer in the Damallsvenskan. Swedish women's football is not a stepping stone to be dismissed. The league is competitive, the standard is real, and Tandberg was catching eyes.
Tottenham head coach Martin Ho moved for her on deadline day in the summer of 2025, and she repaid that faith almost immediately. Her first start produced a spectacular 40-yard goal against Everton, which is the kind of debut moment that tends to follow a player around and set expectations. Those expectations are a double-edged thing, especially when you are still adapting to a league that operates at a different pace and intensity to anything you have experienced before.
"It's a big difference from Sweden," she admits. "You meet World Cup players week in, week out so you have to perform every week if you want results." That is an honest and important observation. The WSL is genuinely demanding in a way that clubs and pundits sometimes understate when discussing it. For a young forward arriving from Scandinavia, the physical and tactical step up is significant, and Tandberg has had the self-awareness to recognise it rather than pretend it does not exist.
The Kane Comparison She Makes Herself
One of the more interesting threads in Tandberg's thinking is the way she draws on Harry Kane as a model for her own development. Not Kane the goalscorer, the man whose numbers made him one of the most clinical forwards in Premier League history, but Kane the evolved footballer, the one who understood that longevity required more than just standing in the right place at the right time.
"It's a bit like Harry Kane," she says. "The older he gets, he has developed his game as well. He needed to be deeper in the pitch because that's how they wanted to play and then he has to be better with the ball. That's a bit how I also need to be. I can't only just stand in the box. I need to be good everywhere else." It is a surprisingly mature read of what top-level football demands, and it tells you something about the environment Ho has created at the club. She is thinking about pressing, about combination play, about her role in the whole system rather than just her contribution to the scoreline.
Playing under Ho, she says, has changed the way she thinks even when she is not near the goal. Her physicality has shifted too. She describes herself as stronger and fitter, which reflects the demands of a league where [Arsenal, for all their current struggles, still carry genuine quality](/uprise/football/madueke-strike-gives-toothless-arsenal-win-at-forest) and where the margins between result and disappointment are thin.
What Ho Has Built
The transformation Martin Ho has overseen at Tottenham Hotspur Women is one of the more underappreciated stories in the WSL over the past couple of seasons. Tandberg herself is clear about how sharp the turn has been. Two years ago, she says, this was a relegation club. Last season, they finished fifth. That is not incremental progress. That is a structural overhaul delivered quickly enough that the wider football conversation has barely had time to catch up.
"The transformation that Martin has done in a season is unbelievable. I don't think anyone else could do that. That tells you everything about him." Tandberg also says she believes Ho is one of the primary reasons players are choosing to join the club, which matters enormously at a time when the WSL transfer market is more competitive than it has ever been. Reputation travels quickly in women's football, and coaches who can demonstrate a clear project and a genuine development pathway attract the kind of players who have options.
It is worth sitting with the ambition she expresses, because it is grounded rather than blustery. She wants top three. She thinks Tottenham belong in the Champions League conversation. But she qualifies that with an acknowledgement of where the club has come from, which stops the ambition sliding into arrogance. That balance is genuinely hard to strike, and she manages it.
When Form Gets Tested
None of this, of course, has been straightforward. After an unbeaten start to the season, Tottenham have lost back-to-back matches, conceding six goals each time, against London City Lionesses and Chelsea. Six goals twice. That is not a blip. That is a question about mentality and defensive organisation that needs a real answer.
Tandberg's response to that run tells you something about her character. She does not deny it or spin it. She acknowledges that the team may need to "change our mentality a bit, find that fire and dig a bit deeper when we play those top teams." She also makes a point that carries genuine insight: the dip had to come eventually, and what matters now is the response. That is not defeatist. It is an honest read of how competitive cycles work in any league, and it suggests she has the emotional intelligence to handle pressure without letting it become paralysis.
She also frames the losses against [an increasingly competitive London women's football scene](/uprise/football/six-questions-facing-england-as-they-target-next-years-womens) that puts Tottenham's trajectory in sharper relief. Building a top-five club out of what was a relegation fight requires navigating exactly these kinds of moments.
Playing for the People in the Stands
The detail that stays with you longest from this interview is the one that connects Tandberg's dual identity most directly. She is a professional footballer. She is also a supporter. She has been in those stands, experienced the derby from the terraces, felt what it does to your nervous system when everything hangs on ninety minutes against the team you were raised to detest.
"I've always been a passionate player and I've been a supporter. I play for the supporters because I just enjoy it and I know how it is to be in the stands." That is not a line written by a PR department. It is a statement from someone who understands the transaction that exists between a football club and its community, the real, unspoken one that goes far beyond the commercial relationship. She knows what it means to go home after a derby defeat. She knows what it means to go home after a win.
"To give them something back is important and to show that we see and hear them every time." This is the north London derby in the WSL, in October 2026, with a Spurs side that has gone from fighting relegation to fighting for a Champions League place and a 22-year-old Norwegian forward who carries the rivalry in her chest like she was born to it. There will be nerves, she says. Good nerves. The kind that tell you something genuinely matters. After everything this club has been through in the past two years, that matters more than the three points alone.