Real test Spurfect for Kane
HARRY KANE rolled out the welcome mat to Gareth Bale and Real Madrid with the message that pitting their wits against the world’s elite is what Tottenham are all about these days.
When the sides met in the quarter-finals six years ago, Bale was still in the white of the north London club and was powerless to prevent a 5-0 aggregate drubbing by one of the competition’s giants.
But the man who left Tottenham as the world’s most expensive player two years after that will return to find an upwardly mobile side with pretensions one day of standing alongside Europe’s elite.
So while Spurs fans were cursing their luck at a Group H draw in Monaco that pitted them with Borussia Dortmund and Apoel Nicosia of Cyprus along with the defending champions, their players were embracing the potential challenge.
“It’s a great draw,” said Kane. “You expect to play the best in Europe in the Champions League and it’s exciting for us. We look forward to these games.
“You want to test yourself against the best – and Real Madrid are the best at the moment. I remember the game against Real Madrid at the Lane in 2011.
“I’m sure Wembley will be packed for the matches and we can’t wait to get started. Our aim is to win every game and this will be a good test to see where we’re at and how far we’ve come.”
Tottenham had a miserable campaign last season at Wembley. Their plan to acclimatise themselves to the stadium before being forced to move there this season while White Hart Lane is rebuilt backfired.
Indeed, for all the incredible progress Mauricio Pochettino has engineered in the Premier League since his arrival, he still has not found a cure for a relatively poor record in Europe for Spurs since that last-eight appearance.
Borussia Dortmund will provide the more revealing test as, with minnows Apoel expected to finish bottom of the group, reaching the knockout stages with Real looks to be a straightforward head to head between Spurs and a German side who dumped them out of the Europa League 17 months ago.
Then, Pochettino insisted that his side would use the 5-1 aggregate defeat as a lesson in “what it means to compete in Europe”.
How well they learnt it will be tested for sure when Dortmund visit Wembley for the opening game on September 13. The draw was kinder to the other English sides, with Jose Mourinho marking Manchester United’s return to the Champions League with a visit back home to Portugal to face Benfica, United’s beaten opponents in the 1968 final at Wembley and a side the Special One managed briefly in 2000.
Mourinho will also not mind a trip to Basle, but the third pairing of Group A with CSKA Moscow is just one of a number of long-distance nightmares faces by the English sides.
Liverpool head to Moscow themselves in five weeks’ time to face Spartak in a group that also includes Sevilla and Slovenian side Maribor in arguably the easiest of the eight Champions League groupings.
Manchester City’s worst logistical problem is a trip to Ukraine for Shakhtar Donetsk, as well as facing Feyenoord and a much-fancied Napoli side.
Chelsea, also grouped with Roma, have the longest journey of all, having to make the 6,000mile round trip to Baku to play Qarabag just days before a tough league visit to Anfield.
In a playful further twist to the Diego Costa transfer saga, Antonio Conte’s side were joined in Group C by Atletico Madrid, the team desperate to sign the AWOL Brazilian before the transfer window closes.