Pochettino: My pride at the way we competed

MAurICIO Pochettino returned from the tunnel, looked up to the heavens and saluted the 4,000 Tottenham fans high in tiers four and five.

They sang his name one more time and the manager shook his fist before disappearing once again.

Pochettino seemed to have been building up to this duel in Madrid for some time, as if it was every bit an acid test for himself and his coaching staff as well as his players.

‘I’m so proud of my players and the effort they put in,’ said the Spurs boss. ‘The greatest challenge was to compete and we’ve done it — against real Madrid in the Bernabeu.

‘It was something we were missing — this feeling of competing at the highest level. We are a team under construction but we have reinforced our ideas.

‘The result is less important. The fact we competed makes me most happy.’

On the pitch, all eyes were on Harry Kane, and he responded by offering glimpses of what he does well on a difficult night up front, though he was unable to beat Keylor Navas with Spurs’ best chance.

‘I thought I did everything, he’s made a very good save,’ said Kane, who ran hard, shouldered responsibility, hit the target with his chances, troubled real’s central defenders and forced the mistake for the own goal by raphael Varane.

As Karim Benzema squandered chances of his own, Kane offered real Madrid no reason to abandon their charm offensive if they really do want him.

Off the pitch Pochettino, too, fulfilled his promise.

On the touchline in his raincoat, arms folded, deep in thought he watched his players grafting hard to carry out his orders.

The Spurs boss seemed to flutter his eyelashes at the Madrid media in the approach to this game as if he too might one day have designs on the job currently occupied by Zinedine Zidane.

There was a verbal assault on Pep Guardiola for daring to call Spurs ‘the Harry Kane Team’ and a timely insight into his Spurs project in a new book.

On the eve of the game, he was in charismatic form, joking about the forthcoming book during his press conference and confessing he could never manage Barcelona.

Then, he dropped a surprise selection to make everyone stop and think. In came Fernando Llorente for only his second start since moving from Swansea — his other was against Barnsley — and the back-five was reshuffled.

Pochettino said: ‘It’s important to work and find different options and surprise our opponents, to be flexible and have different ways to play. We are happy because it worked.’

Llorente added nous and eased the strain on Kane, up against Sergio ramos and Varane.

For all the talk of a young team, Pochettino ensured Spurs were not short of experience.

Hugo Lloris produced a captain’s performance. When real Madrid found a way through a packed defence — and they did — they could not beat the Frenchman in goal from open play.

It was the night when Lloris saved the ‘Harry Kane Team’.

‘Hugo was fantastic,’ said Pochettino. ‘You see why Hugo Lloris is one of the best goalkeepers in the world. The performance was fantastic, a brilliant effort.’

Harry Winks, a teenage flag-bearing mascot when real Madrid came to White Hart Lane in 2011, repaid the faith of Pochettino with another mature performance.

Not this time in a meaningless England international on a plastic pitch but in the Bernabeu Stadium against the European champions.

It was not fluent Spurs but gritty Spurs and this is what truly made Pochettino swell with pride just as those in tiers four and five behind one goal liked the fight they saw.

They celebrated a 1-1 draw like a win and a place in the last-16 beckons after Borussia Dortmund could only draw against APOEL in Cyprus.

Spurs and real are locked together on seven points with an identical goal record at the top of Group H. ‘The point puts us in a very good position to go through,’ said Pochettino. ‘We are building a new stadium at the club, and the team is under construction too. ‘It is important to reinforce the belief that we can compete at this level. Last year it was sad we did not compete in the Champions League. This year is better, we have progressed and we are growing.’