Although the stage for the evening was grand and far beyond any realistic dreams for the club at the outset of the current season, the first leg of the Champions League semifinal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was met with a slight sense of dread and foreboding amongst the club’s most ardent supporters.
For one, Spurs were up against an upstart, dynamic, giant-killing Ajax side, that stylishly disposed of European giants Real Madrid and Juventus, and crucially won away legs at two of the most revered and hallowed venues in all of sport.
Spurs meanwhile limped into the evening, having lost at home in the Premier League on the weekend against West Ham. It was a match that Spurs lost control of in the second half, and after Michail Antonio bullied past Davinson Sanchez and slotted a 67th minute winner past Hugo Lloris, Spurs were completely spent. They were out of gas, out of inspiration and out of options, as Mauricio Pochettino desperately put out an impotent duo of Vincent Janssen and Fernando Llorente to search for a late equalizer. Not surprisingly, it did not come.
(NOTE: Janssen came on as a late substitute in the previous match, a 1-0 win versus Brighton, and made his first appearance for the club since August 2017)
Devoid of energy, Spurs were also undermanned for the semifinal. An incandescent source of light and pace this season, Son Heung-min was ruled out, suspended after accumulating a second yellow card in the second leg of the quarterfinal. The club was also decimated with injury, with Harry Kane recovering from his ankle injury, Harry Winks having had surgery on his groin earlier in the week, and Serge Aurier and Eric Lamela still sidelined with groin and hamstring issues. There was also doubt as to whether the graft and power of Moussa Sissoko would feature, as he too was recovering from a groin strain, and missed the previous two Premier League matches against Brighton and West Ham.
Pochettino elected to start the semifinal with a lone defensive midfielder in Victor Wanyama, protecting a back three of Jan Vertonghen, Sanchez and Toby Alderweireld. Danny Rose and Kieran Trippier were deployed as wing backs, with Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen playing behind Llorente and Lucas Moura. This certainly did not feel like Spurs’ first team, and definitely did not feel like a team that was ready and confident to play on one of the sport’s grandest stages, a European Cup semifinal.
The stage fright absolutely froze Spurs in the first half hour, as Ajax played with a dizzying, free form bravado, redolent of the swashbuckling Ajax and Dutch sides of 1970s. Spurs were clearly stuck in a freeze frame, clearly second best in every aspect, and during this first half hour, held only 31% of the possession. Yet, remarkably, Spurs conceded only once, with Donny van de Beek finishing a glorious buildup featuring exquisite passing between David Neres to Lasse Schone to Hakim Ziyech to van de Beek, who caught Danny Rose woefully out of position. Van de Beek feigned once and then a second time, freezing Lloris, and cooly putting the ball into the net. Ajax were off.
Spurs’ bewilderment continued as the first half dragged on, and it was chiefly the medical staff that came under close scrutiny as play continued. In the 31st minute, former Ajax now Tottenham central defenders, Vertonghen and Alderweireld both leaped simultaneously to play a cross in the Ajax penalty area, and forcefully clashed heads. Vertonghen took the worst of the knocks, with his nose squarely hitting the back of Alderweireld’s head. What followed was akin to a scene out of an over the top war movie, as blood gushed out of Vertonghen’s nose, and the medical team frantically attempted to control the carnage. Following the repairs, Vertonghen was allowed back onto the pitch in the 37th minute, and within moments, proved that he indeed did have a concussion, appearing woozy and unsteady on his feet. As he walked off the pitch, he collapsed into the arms of Pochettino on the touchline, and clearly was not in any state to continue.
Spurs’ doctors will claim that all the proper concussion testing was done on Vertonghen in the six minutes that passed between initial contact and the time that he was allowed back onto the pitch, however, this of course is impossible. Given the impact of the collision, the symptoms he demonstrated in the immediate aftermath, an independent physician or medical team would have recommended that Pochettino make a substitution, that there be no way that Vertonghen would be in any state to continue. While that ultimately did happen, the optics of the initial missed diagnosis were made apparent to the millions of viewers watching from afar. Rightfully, questions will be asked about how concussions are diagnosed, whether football has a problem in spotting, diagnosing and managing them, and whether club medical staff are inherently too invested in the results on the football pitch to properly care about the players and their health off of it.
Much like Vertonghen, Spurs left the pitch at the end of the first half dazed, bloodied and confused. They clearly lacked the pace of Son Heung-min to lead explosive counterattacks, an x-factor that helped the club earn results against Dortmund in the round of 16 and Manchester City in the quarterfinal. They also continued to lack the incisiveness of Kane to rip open the Ajax defense, and keep them on their toes. Fernando Llorente’s lack of pressing game also enabled Ajax to efficiently build attacks from the back.
Yet, despite many of these inadequacies, it was the man who replaced Vertonghen, Moussa Sissoko, who helped provide some stability and balance to the Spurs’ side. Sissoko provided excellent transition up the pitch, and helped provide attacking players with more opportunities to create chances. As the second half wore on, Ajax seemed content to sit further back, and Spurs launched more crosses into the penalty area. Spurs improved their final possession numbers to 52-48 for Ajax, and finished the night with seven shots versus Ajax’s four. Unfortunately, none of those chances amounted to anything of true substance.
A possible moment of importance that we may reflect on in a week’s time as a turning point, took place in the 78th minute, as Ajax continued to show occasional flickers of their first half-hour brilliance. With Spurs launched forward to look for an equalizer, Noussair Mazraoui led a dogged counter attack, laid off to Dusan Tadic in the box, who found David Neres uncovered in a dangerous area in front of goal. Neres’s left footed shot froze Hugo Lloris, and stopped the hearts of Spurs’ supporters, as it dribbled in slow motion, hit the goal post, and quickly popped out for Sissoko to clear from danger. If something had gone right for Spurs, it was that.
Two away goals for Ajax would have made a comeback in Amsterdam extremely difficult, but this glance off the post was a fortuitous gift that leaves next week’s return leg with everything still to play for.
There remains a glimmer of hope yet, and if this Spurs team has shown anything this season, it is that they perform best when there remains the faintest traces of hope.
Jaideep Kanungo
Jaikan Sport 