Lewis Holtby has admitted that hearing the Tottenham fans singing his name and asking him to stay gave him goosebumps.
The Germany international joined Spurs in January 2013 and left in the summer of 2014 with a switch to Hamburg.
During his 18 months in England, he played under Andre Villas-Boas, caretaker boss Tim Sherwood and briefly Mauricio Pochettino, as well as a half-season loan at Fulham.
During that loan at Craven Cottage, Holtby returned for one night only to play in Ledley King's testimonial at White Hart Lane.
It had been a tough season at Tottenham with Villas-Boas sacked and Sherwood taking the reins with mixed results and the Spurs fans made their feelings known about the hard-working German during the friendly match.
"Obviously I had been on loan at Fulham, but I got invited to play at Ledley’s testimonial event which was an honour for me," said Holtby, still just 31, in a new interview with the Spurs website.
"Firstly, [the referee] Howard Webb is a funny character, a lovely guy and in the tunnel before the game he said, ‘let’s just have fun guys and enjoy this moment with Ledley’ and the tackle came out of the blue.
"He just took the ball off me and my first instinct was just to clobber him. The tackle was a bit of a scissor action.
"Obviously, I didn’t hurt him, which is one good thing but then the other good thing is how it ended up going viral. It was a funny scene, but he was quite good with it."
He added: "Then, when the whole stadium sang to me, ‘we want you to stay’, it made really crazy emotions in me. I get goosebumps thinking about it now.
"I really wanted to stay but, at the end of the transfer window in 2014, we made that last minute decision to go back to Germany.
"I think the uncertainty had (brought about my decision to leave). I really loved game time. I wanted to play. I didn’t want to be a squad player - at that age especially.
"If you are a different age, you think about it differently. At that age I loved playing every week rather than 10 or 15 minutes in the Premier League.
"I made a decision to play football but, if I had the brain I do today, I probably would have stayed because Spurs is such a special place."
Holtby would eventually return to England with a spell at Blackburn before the pandemic took hold and he joined German second division side Holsetein Kiel where he is currently plying his trade in the midfield.
