Kane denied glory at the death
Spurs miss chance to qualify amid VAR chaos as livid Conte sees red
ON the touchline, Antonio Conte was in a screaming, emotional frenzy. First joy, then fury. His team were through, then they were not. They had scored, then they hadn’t. That’s football these days. That’s VAR.
The moral of the night, however, is simple: start earlier. Tottenham only began playing in the second half, only started scoring in the final 10 minutes, only thought they had won four minutes and 50 seconds into injury time.
Had they begun with the same fervour that they finished, the job would have been done by now. Instead, it is all to do. A draw will put them through, so it could be worse. But the deciding match is at the Stade Velodrome, home of Marseille, and famously hostile.
This was their chance. Had they defeated Sporting, the last game would have been an irrelevance. Players rested, European competition put to bed until next year. Instead, any two of four teams could progress from Group D, two points separating them all. It’s a knife fight in a telephone box. Should Tottenham have won here? It’s hard to argue that. They were as bad in the first half as they were good in the second, and it’s not as if Sporting were without chances, even late on. As for the cancelled winner, it will take some unpicking. Harry Kane was in an offside position when he put it in, but the cross from Emerson Royal came off the knee of Flavio Nazinho. This is deemed irrelevant because the Lisbon substitute is deemed not to have played the ball in an intentional manner.
Yet how can anything a covering defender does to prevent the ball reaching the box be deemed as accidental? Nazinho wasn’t trying to get it under control. He was trying to get a touch. And he got a touch. How is that irrelevant?
Conte had gone berserk when the ball was turned past goalkeeper Antonio Adan, jumping into the arms of his assistants, as he is wont to do. Then he was equally unhinged once Dutch referee Danny Makkelie had consulted with VAR Pol van Boekel and ruled it out. The decision took an age, which is perplexing, because the freeze frame released by UEFA made the infringement plain. Conte directed his fury at the officials and Makkelie brandished a red card. That won’t help in Marseille, either, the manager imprisoned in a hotel room. It could have been worse, of course. Tottenham were heading for defeat had Rodrigo Bentancur not scored with an 80th-minute header from an Ivan Perisic corner, and the permutations would have been considerably worse had that happened. Yet even with this point, if Tottenham lose they will go out and down to the Europa League for the exhausting Thursday night joust. They have made it so much harder for themselves by falling short here.
They had the chances to win in the second half and the people willing them on in this fabulous arena, but Sporting held out, just. They deserved their point, however, for a first-half display in which they rocked Conte’s side with a goal and several chances. They should have wrapped it up in the second half before Tottenham scored, too, when Nazinho missed a gaping goal, after Hugo Lloris parried a shot from a tight angle by Pedro Porro.
For Spurs, Matt Doherty, Lucas Moura and Eric Dier all came close — the latter with a free header in the final minute of normal time that should have won the game.
Yet, much like the game against Newcastle on Sunday, Tottenham only woke up once they were down. They took an age to get going and, by the time they did, the Portuguese were settled, confident and leading through Enfield boy Marcus Edwards. He was born up the road but did not make it at his local club. Last night, he made them pay for that oversight.
Expected goals is one of those modern football statistics that not everybody understands. Sometimes, however, a simple number can break through even the densest barriers. After 35 minutes here, Tottenham’s expected goals rating stood at 0.03. Translated: playing like this, they could expect to score 3 per cent of a goal.
So, not good. In fact, given other expectations coming into this game, it is hard to believe the first half could have gone worse. Not only did Tottenham not look like scoring, they looked very much like conceding. They did, after 22 minutes. Yet Sporting should also have had one after 13, and another after 20. They were much the better side in terms of chances created, and seemed to have a greater sense of purpose, too. This was always the match Conte targeted for the win and to that end, he made six changes from the Newcastle defeat. It was said that at the weekend he picked the team with one eye on the Champions League. But if he stressed the importance of this fixture, the message didn’t seem to have reached his players, and his bestlaid plans were scuppered.
Tottenham started as if in a stupor. They were sluggish in midfield, toothless around the Sporting goal. Dier played a long ball through to Lucas Moura after eight minutes, and the Brazilian just failed to get there. But that ripple of excitement was shortlived. Tottenham settled comfortably into a rut, Sporting took advantage of their malaise.
Sebastian Coates, once of Liverpool, should have scored from the first set- piece of the game, whipped in from the left by Nuno Santos, but he steered a free header wide of the far post. Soon after, Porro broke down the right and hit a low cross which found Paulinho, getting in front of Cristian Romero and turning his shot narrowly over the bar.
Yet a goal was coming and, two minutes later, it arrived. Here was real salt in the wound. Edwards had been at the club since his schooldays — given a first-team debut against Gillingham by Mauricio Pochettino. It remains his only Spurs appearance.
He was farmed out on loan and eventually to Vitoria de Guimaraes in Portugal. Sporting picked him up earlier this year, and he enjoyed an excellent game when these teams first met in Lisbon in the group stage.
Here, he went one better. Edwards picked the ball up in midfield and drove towards the Tottenham goal. Tottenham retreated. Edwards ghosted past Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and still the white shirts backed off.
Now the goal was within sight. Just outside the penalty area, Edwards let fly and his low shot defeated Lloris, slow to get down, after a rather traumatic encounter with Newcastle four days ago. It was no more than Sporting deserved, and Tottenham, too.
Sporting even looked as if they had snatched a second in the 42nd minute, but referee Makkelie rightly observed that Coates had pushed the ball into the net with his hand and showed him a yellow card for his cheek.
Tottenham started the second half more brightly with a cross by Bentancur bouncing around the box before Dier forced a fine save from Adan. Romero had a shot blocked by Coates and Hojbjerg missed in the most sustained period of Tottenham pressure.
Adan was forced into another save from Son Heung-min soon after. This was more like it, but not enough. Why it took Tottenham so long to wake up, who knows, but they can’t play like this in France next week. Not unless they fancy playing Thursdays.