The Road to Madrid: How Tottenham reached the Champions League final
Does Saturday mark the biggest game in Tottenham’s history? Perhaps. Late (non)goals have benefitted Spurs’ dramatic progression to the Champions League final, where they’ll take on Liverpool in the first all-English final in 11 years.
However, it could easily have been so different for Spurs, and that’s before taking into account Raheem Sterling’s disallowed goal at the Etihad Stadium and Lucas Moura’s late winner in Amsterdam. Drawn into one of the more difficult groups, Spurs kicked their Champions League campaign off with a trip to Inter. Coming into the clash on the back of back-to-back defeats, they were tipped to struggle at San Siro, even accounting for Inter’s sub-par form ahead of the tie.
Christian Eriksen put Spurs ahead, perhaps undeservingly with the north London side on the back foot for much of the first half, before the Italian side made home advantage count with a rare Mauro Icardi goal from outside the box drawing Inter level before Matias Vecino’s late winner condemned Spurs to a 2-1 loss. Things went from bad to worse for Spurs too as they were torn apart by a brilliant Lionel Messi display at Wembley.
Coutinho put Barcelona ahead in the capital and Ivan Rakitic netted a sublime second to double the Blaugrana’s advantage. Mauricio Pochettino’s side tried in vain to haul themselves back into the tie as Harry Kane and Erik Lamela netted either side of Lionel Messi’s first, but it was the latter’s late winner that confirmed all three points for Barcelona. And Spurs must have felt their Champions League excursions were coming to an end when Hirving Lozano put PSV ahead in Eindhoven after half an hour.
To their credit, Spurs didn’t simply roll over and let PSV win as Lucas Moura and Kane struck either side of half time to put the north London side 2-1 up. However, with 10 minutes to play, Hugo Lloris was dismissed and with a one man advantage, Luuk de Jong headed PSV level in the dying embers. The same player put PSV ahead in the reverse fixture after just two minutes and Spurs stared European elimination in the eye.
The spirit shown to recover from the early setback and win 2-1 instigated their path to the final as Kane’s late second half brace secured a vital three points. Spurs followed that up with a 1-0 win over Inter with Eriksen again hitting the back of the net against the Italian side as progression to the next round went down to the final game. With Barcelona through, Ernesto Valverde elected to rest key players against Spurs in Spain and this benefitted Pochettino’s side.
Spurs, though, got off to the worst possible start as a Kyle Walker-Peters errors eventually resulted in an Ousmane Dembele goal after seven minutes. The Premier League side held their nerve and fought back impressively and with five minutes to play, Moura equalised. With Inter held to a 1-1 draw by PSV at San Siro, Spurs progressed alongside Barcelona.
On paper, a meeting with Borussia Dortmund was far from ideal. The Bundesliga side were the pace setters in Germany, even if their performances following the winter break were underwhelming to say the least. The clash with Dortmund, no less, was one that Spurs weren’t expected to navigate, but they did so with ruthless efficiency. A 3-0 win at Wembley courtesy of second half goals from Son Heung-Min, Jan Vertonghen and Fernando Llorente had Spurs with one foot in the quarter-finals and while Dortmund rallied - it took a man of the match display from Hugo Lloris to keep the German outfit at bay - Kane’s second half goal wrecked any hopes of a Dortmund turnaround.
A quarter-final clash with Premier League adversaries Manchester City awaited Spurs in the next round in their first ever Champions League match at their new stadium, and while Kane was forced off with an ankle injury, they still secured victory courtesy of Son. Lloris’ first half penalty stop from Sergio Aguero proved key in the grand scheme of things as Spurs snuck past City in dramatic circumstances.
Sterling put City ahead early on, before a quickfire Son brace had Spurs 3-1 up on aggregate in an entertaining opening 10 minutes in Manchester. Bernardo Silva halved the deficit on aggregate in the 12th minute and Sterling had City level with 21 minutes on the clock. It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it match at the Etihad! Aguero finally had the beating of Lloris on the hour mark before a VAR fuelled 20 minutes saw Spurs progress. Llorente put Spurs level on aggregate and while it appeared that the ball struck his hand, Cuneyt Cakir allowed the goal to stand. Then, deep into injury time, Sterling thought he’d won the game for City, but an offside call with the help of VAR saw Spurs win, draw and lose on the same night.
Up against Ajax in the semi-finals, Spurs were tentative in the opening half hour as Donny van de Beek put the Eredivisie powerhouse ahead in London. Pochettino’s side rallied, but lacked the cutting edge to draw level in the first leg, eventually falling to a 1-0 loss on home turf. And their task became all the more mountainous in the first half of the second leg as goals from Matthijs de Ligt and Hakim Ziyech put Ajax 3-0 up on aggregate. Pochettino threw Llorente into the mix at the break and that proved to be the turning point as Spurs fought back excellently to win 3-2 on the night and progress on away goals as Moura’s hat-trick saw Spurs secure their spot in the Champions League final.
And so that brings us to Madrid. Spurs lost their two meetings with Liverpool this season, but in a major cup final, anything can happen. Pochettino has worked wonders to get his side this far and he, and the rest of his squad, will be well aware that they are now 90 minutes from writing their names into the history books.
