LLORENTE SEALS A THRILLER
Substitute strikes, then late VAR drama ends Quadruple dream as Spurs earn showdown with Ajax
THERE were four minutes to go before half-time when Mauricio Pochettino made one of the boldest calls of his managerial career. Moussa Sissoko, a strongrunning midfielder, limped slowly from the pitch; Fernando Llorente came on.
Tottenham were still going through at the time, but Pochettino did not favour caution. He had plenty of defensive cover on the bench. He chose to introduce a striker and tinker with the team shape. Some 32 minutes later, Llorente would score the goal that sent Tottenham through to the Champions League semi-final. Fortune favours the brave — or, to dare is to do, as they like to say in that part of north London.
By the time Llorente scored, City were winning — the tie, and this crazy game. They had laid siege to Tottenham’s goal after half-time and where Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva had been unable to convert good chances, Sergio Aguero had at last found a way through.
De Bruyne was the architect, powering through the centre, a lovely run, Tottenham unsure how to deal with him until the ball was laid to Aguero on the right. He lashed it past Hugo Lloris at the near post. No goalkeeper is content when beaten from that position, but the ball was as good as past him before he could react. Some of Aguero’s finishes are simply unstoppable.
Llorente, not so much. The goal that sent Tottenham through to a last-four meeting with Ajax was, if anything, a fluke, Llorente missing his header but somehow making a connection and bundling the ball in with his body.
To add to the drama it looked as if it might have come off his arm. So over to the screen went referee Cuneyt Cakir for several minutes of clarification. His view? It hit Llorente’s hip. And even if it didn’t, the call between hip and arm was not so obvious that the goal could be cancelled.
Meaning Tottenham lost, but won. And then they conceded to Sterling in injury time, so they were really losing. And then that was cancelled by VAR for offside; so they won again.
Pep Guardiola went from haring down the touchline in celebration to falling to his knees, head in hands, in agony, his dreams of a Quadruple over. City have fallen to English opposition at the quarterfinal stage two seasons in succession. Yet Tottenham scored three times at the Etihad. One cannot say their progress is undeserved in those circumstances.
There was a moment, after the fourth goal had gone in within 11 minutes — or maybe when the fifth was scored after 21 — when, had Guardiola and Pochettino looked at each other, burst out laughing and adjourned to the nearest pub, nobody could have blamed them one iota.
After all, Tottenham would have been warned that City like to start fast, so keep it tight, and City would have been told that a single Tottenham goal could be fatal, so stay focused and no silly mistakes. Thus, the presence of both managers had already been rendered hopelessly redundant.
Far from keeping it tight, Tottenham had shipped three goals in 17 minutes. Far from avoiding damaging errors, City made two that cost goals in a three-minute spell. It is testament to the professionalism of both men that they remained shouting instructions from the touchline, and not shouting a beer and red wine order at a local establishment.
No Champions League fixture had ever witnessed four goals inside 11 minutes, English football once again demonstrating that it has never quite got to grips with this cat-and-mouse thing that is supposed to be the way in Europe.
If this was cat and mouse, it resembled one of those Tom and Jerry cartoons in which the pair chase each other through a series of immaculately furnished rooms, destroying every bit of priceless
china in their wake. It was a ridiculous, preposterous, really quite wonderful game, in which both teams abandoned cohesion and strategy in favour of a gung-ho, toe-to-toe tearup. You have a go, then we have a go, and we’ll tot up the scores at the end.
It all began in the fourth minute when City got the breakthrough their fans believed was indicative of the way the night would unfold. Could Tottenham hold out, that had been the question. It transpired they couldn’t make it unscathed through City’s first attack of the night.
De Bruyne played a sweet pass out to Raheem Sterling on the left and Kieran Trippier made the big mistake of steering his England teammate inside. No defender should do that, given Sterling’s current form. Allowed sight of the target, these days, Sterling is one of the most lethal finishers in Europe and his shot curled out of the reach of Lloris, perfectly in the far corner. The stadium erupted in relief and expectation.
City were level on aggregate with 86 minutes left, at home, to score the winner. So what happened next must have come as something of a shock. Tottenham equalised, then led. Scored from their next attack, and the one after that. Left City to battle uphill for the rest of the match. It was a stunning three minutes.
The leveller came on seven minutes. Good work from Dele Alli sent the ball into City’s box but Aymeric Laporte’s unthinking clearance was as good as a pass to Son Heung-min. His record without Harry Kane is well known now, so the precision of his finish was hardly a surprise. Even so, Ederson should have done better. The ball travelled low and City’s goalkeeper tried to keep it out with his feet. Suffice to say, he is no David de Gea. He missed his kick and Tottenham led on aggregate.
The next goal was the gamechanger and Laporte at fault again. It was his mistake, high up the field, that let Lucas Moura in on a counter-attack. He fed Christian Eriksen who moved the ball swiftly on to Son and, well, you can guess the rest. Another curling shot of accuracy, another goal scored in the absence of Kane.
It really is the most peculiar phenomenon. Look at Son’s scoring record when Kane is on the field. Maybe he’s allergic to him. So now City needed three. Yet, crazy game that is was, within 10 minutes they had scored two of them. Only a minute had elapsed since Tottenham’s last when Aguero laid the ball off to Bernardo Silva on the right. With team-mates calling for a return, he went it alone and his shot ricocheted off the legs of Danny Rose and past goalkeeper Lloris. Could he have done better? Probably.
There followed a gap of 10 minutes in which nobody scored at all and then up it all started again; City at their quick-thinking best and Tottenham surrendering another slice of what had been a three-goal lead.
A free-kick was awarded for a foul by Sissoko, and De Bruyne took it sharply, bringing Bernardo Silva in on the right. He drove with such aggression that Son fell over just trying to recover his position, by which time De Bruyne had appeared on the outside. He whipped a centre across goal and there was Sterling to convert at the far post.
The last chance of the first half fell to Son, and was missed, and the stage was set for City to throw the kitchen sink at Tottenham after half-time in search of the go-ahead goal — which was exactly what happened. So predictable, football, sometimes.