Painful lessons which Spurs need to heed at highest level
SOMETIMES the small things can make the difference. Even on nights when you are largely outplayed — nights when you run in to an unfamiliar level of genius — the tiniest contribution can ensure your dreams remain pinned to the floor.
Here at an increasingly raucous and optimistic Wembley, it was the French central defender Clement Lenglet who earned his money for Barcelona when it mattered most.
The 23–year-old will not feature heavily in the post-match conversations, if indeed at all. They will all be about another spellbinding night from Lionel Messi and rightly so. Whoever said the 31-year-old’s levels have dipped in recent times received a kick to the guts of that notion here at Wembley.
But Barcelonana coach Ernesto Valverdede will know what Lenglet nglet did here. So will Tottenham’s Mauricio uo Pochettino and indeed his forward Lucas Moura.
There were almost 90 minutes on the clock when Moura eased in n from the left ft touchline, dropped ed a shoulder to drift past his mann and opened his body to shoot. The Brazilian was favourite to score an equaliser that would have blown the roof off this stadium and vastly improve Tottenham’s chances in Group B.
But as Moura’s right-foot shot headed for goal, Lenglet somehow got in the way and the ball deflected wide of goal. It was a superb piece of defending.
From the corner that followed, Eric Dier rose highest and nodded the ball towards goal. Once again Lenglet blocked, this time with his head.
So that was the platform which allowed Messi to immediately take advantage of Luis Suarez’s sublime dummy at the other end and convert the goal that gave this scoreline a more realistic hue. Barcelona, over the course of the game, were two goals better than Tottenham at the very least and once again Pochettino’s players reflect on a big European night with much to learn. Try as they might, Tottenham just can’t get this right. They beat Real Madrid here last season but bungled a lead against Juventus in the knock- out stages. Last month they did likewise at Inter and now they have this one on their resume, too. So what do they learn? Maybe two things. Firstly, the value of starting a game at the same tempo at which you finish and secondly that no team has ever won anything at this level without first constructing a platform from unstinting hard work. The modern Barcelona lonaBarcelona have wowedwow us for years with the way they play their football. The use of the ball has chchanged a little sisince Pep Guardiola dGuardiola placed his ccreed before his players 10 years ago but much remains the same. The angles, tthe slickness anand the availability ityavailability of team-mates to receivere possession sionpossession anand use it. EquallyEqually, the work remains. The willingness to work harder than an opponent, both in possession and out. Barcelona remain angels with dirty faces and maybe that’s the biggest compliment of all. We know what drives Messi to score his goal in stoppage time. It’s simple. Vanity and glory. But what drives him to fight so hard for the ball at 3-2 that he ends up face down in the dirt in a centre circle ploughed up by Anthony Joshua’s recent world title fight? What drives him to chase another ball so hard in to the corner in front of the away supporters that Tottenham are forced to recycle the play quicker and with less precision than they would have wished? It can only be the years of unstinting coaching, the repetition of the same message delivered by different people. Without work, you are nothing. Tottenham worked hard here, too. They almost always do under Pochettino. But they didn’t work as hard as
Barcelona and, more importantly, they didn’t find confidence until it was too late.
The english team were rocked a little by Barcelona’s first goal and didn’t respond well enough. They cannot — or should not — be in awe of this spanish team but for most of the first 50 minutes they played as though they were.
Barcelona had too much time and space in which to operate in the first half and Messi and his team-mates took advantage to establish a two-goal lead that could have grown embarrassingly large had their little captain not struck the same post with identical shots twice early in the second half.
Tottenham deserve credit for the way they responded and tried to capitalise on that fortune.
once Harry Kane scored to give hope, Wembley became a different place — loud and febrile — but that only served to remind us just how cowed everybody had been earlier.
We are not yet in to winter and already Tottenham’s season feels like it has reached a first staging post.
it will take successive wins against PsV to resurrect their hopes in this competition while two losses from the first seven Premier League games feels like one too many.
There has been much talk in spain of Barcelona’s need to evolve after Real Madrid won their fourth Champions League in five years last May.
But the same can be said of Tottenham, too.