Arch enemy now Harry’s best pal
IT IS funny how after Dortmund had two goals wrongly ruled out for offside and committed two goalkeeping blunders at the other end to gift Tottenham the win, none of the “home” fans were calling Wembley unlucky any more.
Jan Vertonghen could perhaps believe the national stadium was still slightly jinxed after his injury-time red card spoiled what otherwise would have been a perfect night.
An early goal by Heung-min Son and Harry Kane’s double were enough to end a run of just one win in the last 13 at Wembley and perhaps kill off a few superstitions as well.
For all their rub of the green, though, it was hard to begrudge Spurs their win as although Wembley and Tottenham have not always been a comfortable fit, against one of the Bundesliga’s strongest teams the London club finally showed the first signs they might be genuinely ready for the big time.
The last time these two sides met, Dortmund had handed Spurs an absolute lesson in top-class European football.
The German side’s previous trip to Wembley had been for the 2013 Champions League final itself – a game in which they came close to taking Bayern Munich to a penalty shoot-out.
Three seasons later, having unusually dropped out of the elite competition in the group stages, they were paired with Mauricio Pochettino’s side in the Europa League’s round of 16. AT WEMBLEY not done his homework. From the moment Son crossed the halfway line in the fourth minute and started bearing down on goal, it was clear what his intention was.
Since he had arrived at Spurs – from the Bundesliga – Son had proved adept at attacking the near post and squeezing in goals from impossibly tight angles.
Papasthathopolous bought a feint inside, giving Son room to tee up a fierce shot through the keeper and in.
The strike was clearly still in Roman Burki’s mind 11 minutes later when Kane was the marauding Spurs star in a similar position.
The Dortmund goalkeeper overcompensated for another effort similar to Son’s but left a gap the size of Wembley’s giant arch for Kane to bend his shot into.
In between those moments of magic, though, there was a worrying sign that some of those lessons of 2016 had not been learned.
Mousa Dembele played only 32 of the 180 minutes of those previous games against Dortmund but it should have been enough for him to realise you cannot allow such quality opposition time around the penalty area.
In the 11th minute Andriy Yarmolenko had simply ghosted past him and from the corner of the penalty area produced the sort of sublime curling finish that is impressively standard for this level of football.
Inevitably the pressure on the Tottenham goal was going to continue.
When Dortmund did get the ball in the back of the net, on the stroke of half-time, it was incorrectly ruled out for offside.
Again the offside flag came to Spurs’ rescue when Dortmund hit the net and again it was the wrong decision, as the home side rode their luck.
Both times the player converting the chance had come from deep while more advanced Dortmund players had rightly left the ball alone.
And then that struck again.
Clever work by Dembele and Christian Eriksen on the far side of the Dortmund penalty area and Kane’s low shot found its way via a slight deflection into the bottom corner.
TOTTENHAM off: (3-4-3): Booked: Goals: DORTMUND (4-3-3):
man Kane
Sent