Tag: tottenham

It was the match for the ages, one that we had been anticipating for weeks on end. And then it ended, just like that. Our wildest hopes and dreams crushed instantly. It was the sport’s grandest stage, and one that our club may never see again, for a long while.

It has been a few days since Spurs dropped the Champions League final to Liverpool by a 2-0 scoreline in Madrid.

Ever since Lucas Moura scored the final second winner in Amsterdam in the Champions League semifinal on 8 May and put us all into a dream-like state, 1 June was circled on the calendar. Even though Spurs had finished 26 points behind Liverpool in the Premier League (97 points to 71), there was a growing sense of belief among Spurs supporters that perhaps, in fact, that the club could pull this out.

They had, after all, seen two incredible, breathtaking, heart stopping ties in the prior rounds, against a vastly superior Manchester City side, and an upstart and uptempo Ajax team, that had scalped Juventus and Real Madrid en route to the semi-final.

The match also marked the return of Harry Kane and Harry Winks to the Spurs lineup, both of whom played their last matches in the first leg of the Champions League Quarterfinal against Manchester City, on 9 April (Kane had been injured with yet another ankle injury, while Winks was recovering from a groin injury, which required minor surgery).

In the sweltering heat of Madrid, all it took was 23 seconds for the cascading tide of good feelings to come to a sudden halt. Sadio Mane’s attempt to cross the ball met an unfortunately placed, errant Moussa Sissoko hand, and a penalty was given to Liverpool. Mohamed Salah, who himself had the Champions League Final tragically ripped away a year earlier through injury inflicted by the villainous Sergio Ramos, stepped up to the spot, and coolly slotted the ball past Hugo Lloris, putting Liverpool ahead 1-0.

The rest of the match seemed to be played in quicksand, whether it was due to the oppressive Spanish summer heat, the three week hiatus from football both clubs had endured, or the extreme stakes that were on the line. With the early lead and the experience of playing on this stage, Liverpool felt increasingly comfortable sitting back, allowing Spurs to play with the ball (Spurs finished the match with 65% possession). Liverpool also had a paltry 64% pass completion rate. Yet in spite of this, Spurs never really threatened.

Spurs finished the match with eight shots on target, yet it appeared as though Alisson Becker, Liverpool’s brilliant keeper, was hardly tested.

Harry Kane was largely ineffective, managing only 26 touches over the entire match, the fewest of any player who started. Lucas Moura, the hat-trick hero from the semifinal, came on in the 65th minute for Harry Winks, and managed two shots on target during his time on the pitch, while Kane managed a single one. Son Heung-min, who had also been instrumental in Spurs’ run up to the final, was also ineffectual. A brief glimmer in the 75th minute saw the usually explosive Son sprung on a loose ball, offering a possible opening for Spurs to re-emerge in the match. Liverpool’s calming force, Virgil van Dijk, had other ideas. He kept pace with Son, eliminated his space, and casually overtook the ball. It was a brilliant bit of defending, a prime example of van Dijk’s quality and impact in containing Spurs’ attack.

A Divock Origi goal in the 87th minute killed off any hope for a Spurs comeback. The last few minutes played out as if Spurs were in on the coronation for Liverpool. Jurgen Klopp’s side had avenged their heartbreaking defeat suffered on the same stage a year earlier.

In the aftermath, much has been made about Mauricio Pochettino’s decision to start Harry Kane in place of Lucas Moura, and play him for the entirety of the match. Starting Kane was a risky proposition, forecasted in the buildup to the match, as Kane had not played in nearly two months, and was overcoming his second injury to his left ankle since January.

Additionally, Spurs managed to play well without Kane in the Premier League this past season, winning seven of 11 matches, and winning Champions League knockout ties against Dortmund, Manchester City and Ajax. When Kane returned from his first ankle injury in January, the team fell into a swoon. Lucas Moura meanwhile had filled in admirably, making his trademark darting runs in between defenders, scavenging loose second balls and using his quick twitch foot to keep goalkeepers on edge. His hat-trick goal to see off Ajax in the semifinal was the iconic moment of Pochettino’s project thus far at Spurs.

And yet, when Harry Kane is on, he offers Pochettino so many additional options and threats. Not only can he poach goals from seemingly dead balls in the box, but he can hold up the play, and can also drop back and play in a number 10 playmaking role. In a one match, winner take all situation, this surely is a tantalizing proposition. However, this form of Harry Kane was completely absent in Madrid. In the 25 and more minutes that Lucas played, he clearly seemed the more lively, threatening and effective player. His tears after the final whistle were palpable for anyone that watched his euphoria after the triumph in Amsterdam three weeks earlier.

In retrospect, not starting Lucas, substituting him so late, and playing Harry Kane the entire match seemed the total wrong decision. Yet, it is hard not to also make the counter point that had Lucas started, and Spurs lost, that Pochettino would have been criticized for leaving his Golden Ball winner and his certain goals on the bench.

This is the difficulty of being a manager. The outside observers seem to know best.

In the days since the final, it was revealed that Christian Eriksen, who will be entering the final year of his contract this upcoming season, is looking for new football challenges. He and his agent have revealed that he would like a “step-up” and are open to seeing if another club will come calling. It is rumoured that last summer, two Spanish clubs and another English club were interested in his services, and in his statement, Eriksen has spoken about how Real Madrid would be an example of the step-up.

This would be a deja-vu scenario for Spurs, as the club has also seen previous talismanic stars, Luka Modric and Gareth Bale move on to Real Madrid in successive years, and become bonafide global superstars, exceeding the accomplishments and profile that Spurs provided them.

Eriksen is now 27, has spent six seasons at Spurs, and has played more minutes and has run more kilometres than any other player in the club during this time. Perhaps this is the best time for Spurs to cash in on the Danish star, with the risk of losing him for free in six months, and the ongoing burdens of having to pay for the new stadium. Spurs’ chairman, Daniel Levy, has set a steep price of £ 130 million, which would help find some younger replacements (similar to how the Gareth Bale sale re-stocked the club in 2013), but it remains to be seen whether there will be a suitor at that cost. Eriksen has also stated that if there is no club that presents a “step-up” opportunity, that he will consider re-signing with the club. And why not? Spurs are a far different proposition today, than they were when Modric and Bale left.

Much of that will also depend on the future of Mauricio Pochettino. The Argentine manager has been heaped with praise from the footballing world for his work this year on a shoestring budget (compared to the financial giants of European football), for managing a team without a home ground for the majority of the season, and for adapting his team in the face of injury. Achieving another top four finish (the fourth year in a row the club has achieved this) and a Champions League Final appearance in the face of these pressures is a reflection of a masterful job. Yet, Pochettino himself has declared that these accomplishments are unsustainable if the club does not put in the appropriate investment into player recruitment and retention. It may seem like a missive to Daniel Levy to do just that.

My feeling is that Pochettino would prefer to be at Spurs long term, it provides him the autonomy to make footballing decisions, he has imposed his identity and culture in the club, and the club now has the best facilities in all of Europe. Yet, whether Pochettino commits long term will be dependent on whether Levy will offer him the resources to keep up with his rivals. Without the deep pockets of an Arab sheikh or a petroleum giant, this could be the sticking point going forward. Many of the jobs that Pochettino was linked with earlier this season (Manchester United and Real Madrid) appear to be occupied for the moment, but potential openings at Juventus and Bayern Munich (where Nico Kovac continues to receive mixed reviews), means that Levy will need to provide Pochettino with some concessions to keep him away from the growing competition.

So here we are. Less than a week after the biggest match that many of us supporters have seen our club play, we have experienced the utter disappointment of coming so far, and leaving empty handed, and also having to deal with endless questions about the club’s future.

Getting to the Champions League Final was an incredible accomplishment, one that left many permanent indelible memories of why we love this game. Yet, the news of this week also reminds us that getting to this stage was an incredibly rare feat, one that requires the genuine alchemy of talent, shrewd management decisions and a bit of luck.

We can only hope and dream that we rediscover this combination again, to get back to this stage and re-live it all again.

Jaideep Kanungo

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