The foaming, uncorkable creativity of Christian Eriksen and how he made the remarkable unremarkable

In the place that likes to think of itself as the spiritual home of the passing game, the man running the show was a visitor. Eriksen looked more of a Barcelona player than any in red and blue

Christian Eriksen was a constant blur of movement (Getty)

It’s Danny Rose who begins the move, and it begins from the unlikeliest of positions: hemmed in near his own left corner flag, under pressure and going backwards. Seven passes to seven different players later, Lucas Moura is stroking the ball into the Barcelona net. Rose to Vertonghen to Lloris to Alderweireld to Eriksen to Lamela to Kane to Lucas: from goal-line to goal-line in about 20 seconds.

Tottenham are saved, and with a goal as ambitious, as complete, as geometrically perfect, as any the Camp Nou has seen this season. And while it’s Lucas who provides the finish and Kane the cross, the key link in the chain is the most difficult pass of all. It’s played, predictably, by Christian Eriksen.

With a tiny gap through which to thread a 45-yard pass up the centre of the pitch, with his view of Lamela obscured by the referee, with five minutes remaining, and with an almost certain Barcelona counter-attack if he got it wrong, Eriksen nailed it. And on another remarkable night for Eriksen, perhaps the most remarkable thing about that pass is that it wasn’t remarkable at all. He was pinging those sorts of high-tariff balls all night.

And as Tottenham squeezed into the Champions League round of 16, it was Eriksen’s foaming, uncorkable creativity that did as much as anyone to get them there.

Barcelona, it has to be said, weren’t very good. Shorn of their first-teamers and distinctly lacking in verve after Ousmane Dembele’s early breakaway goal, their inability to prevent Tottenham from playing the ball through midfield by pressing Moussa Sissoko and Harry Winks proved fatal. Even so, they got an early lead, Philippe Coutinho hit the post twice, Lionel Messi came on for the last half an hour, and that would be more than good enough for most teams. Full-strength or not, this is a team who know what they’re doing.

Yet in the place that likes to think of itself as the spiritual home of the passing game, the man running the show was a visitor. Any Spurs fan who lived through their Sedgley-Caskey-Dozzell era would be utterly stunned to see Tottenham not only playing at the Camp Nou, but imposing themselves. Fifty-two per cent possession! Seventeen shots to thirteen! Eriksen, meanwhile, enjoyed more touches than any other Tottenham player and more passes in the final third than all four Barcelona midfielders - Rakitic, Alena, Arthur and Busquets - put together.

In fact, it wasn’t a stretch to suggest that Eriksen looked more of a Barcelona player than any in red and blue. This is, of course, a mildly delicate subject for Spurs fans, given Eriksen’s own affinity with Barcelona and his idol Andres Iniesta, as well as the ongoing stasis over his new contract. But when you produce performances like that, on a stage like that, it’s hard to imagine many clubs in the world who wouldn’t be interested.

And for all Eriksen’s tribulations this season - the post-World Cup fatigue, the slow start, the struggles with injury, the occasional substitute’s appearance behind Lucas Moura, Dele Alli, Son Heung-Min and Erik Lamela - when it comes to the big games against elite opposition, Eriksen remains a clear first choice. This was a display on a par with his scintillating evening against Juventus at the Allianz Stadium earlier this year, or more recently the 3-1 win over Chelsea at Wembley.

Happily for Spurs fans, these are the performances he is now beginning to produce as a matter of routine.