Ajax vs Tottenham: Spurs can become underdog champions of a generation - but do they have enough left?
Are Mauricio Pochettino’s side running on absolutely empty? Or is there another drop in the tank?
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Your support makes all the difference.What happens when the biggest game of your life comes at an inconvenient moment?
That is how Tottenham Hotspur find the situation heading into Wednesday night’s Champions League semi-final with Ajax in Amsterdam. It is the game they never thought would happen, a shot at Spurs’ first ever European Cup final, an achievement enough for any side. Never mind one who spent this season struggling with no stadium and no signings.
Mauricio Pochettino joked that he could “go home” happy in three and a half weeks’ time if he lifted the famous big-eared trophy in Madrid on 1 June. They would be the underdog champion of a generation, all the more impressive now in this era of the superclubs. Spurs are closer to something greater than they could have ever imagined.
But the problem – and it is quite a serious one – is that Spurs have not played well in months. They are in the worst sustained form dip of the Pochettino era. Their continued success in Europe has come at the cost of killing their league form: they have taken just 10 points from their last 11 league games, literally relegation form, and only the failures of Arsenal and Manchester United have saved their top four status.
Go back through a list of Spurs’ performances from the last few months and only one stands out as a complete comprehensive team display: the 1-0 win over Manchester City in the quarter-final first leg on 9 April. That aside, Spurs have been consistently poor, winning only the most winnable games, and not even all of those. Bournemouth last weekend was a shambles but West Ham the weekend before was even worse.
This is not even Pochettino’s fault, but rather the result of squeezing every last drop out of this tired squad, having added no one to it from last season. And now Harry Kane and Harry Winks are both injured, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli’s form has faded, and Spurs are nowhere near as good as they were.
Simply by finishing fourth Pochettino has taken these players further than anyone believed – never mind their run in this competition. But the question that will define this game – and whether Spurs make history or not – is whether they have anything left to give on Wednesday night. Are they running on absolutely empty? Or is there another drop in the tank?
When Pochettino discussed the tie at his press conference on Tuesday night, he was clear his players had to bring more “energy” to the second leg than they did to the first. “Ajax were very good,” he said, analysing the first game. “They showed more energy than us, they were very dynamic and very good. It was difficult for us to be on the game. Our approach was bad. Tomorrow we need to have more freedom to play and start the game we want to start. We need to have more freedom to play, we have nothing to lose from the beginning.”
Ultimately it can only come down to the players, not the manager, and so the question is how much they have left to give. Captain Hugo Lloris discussed this in detail beforehand and he said the players need to come up with something more. “We need to turn the game,” Lloris said. “The advantage is for Ajax. We know what we have to do. It’s all about winning away from home and we’re going to put all our energy to make it happen.”
But Lloris said that the fatigue issue is not just limited to Spurs. Every club that has been competing on multiple fronts this season – with players who went deep in the World Cup last summer – has been struggling this term. “I think the last two to three months have been very difficult for all the Premier League clubs involved in European competition,” he said. “There has been a lot of fatigue, mental fatigue and body fatigue, and that’s why there have been some strange results in the last few weeks, not only for us but for the other challengers. It’s not easy to manage the schedule and to manage the games because every game can be decisive and important.”
Lloris talked about this as a learning moment for future for English teams, which of course it is. But Wednesday night is not about learning, it is only about winning. Because it is a one-off that Spurs may never experience again. Even now, at the end of a draining season, with everything that has happened on and off the pitch, Tottenham just need to find enough in their legs, one final time.
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