Christian Eriksen on Tottenham’s Champions League Return
It took Tottenham six years to return to the Champions League but now that they’re back, they have a few players who have played in the competition before.
Prior to Christian Eriksen joining Tottenham three years ago in 2013, the Danish international used to play for Ajax in the Eredivisie and competed in two consecutive seasons of Champions League football from 2011-13.
His side would face tough opponents in the group stage, during his time with Ajax, going up against the likes of Borussia Dortmund, Olympique Lyon, Manchester City and Real Madrid.
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For Eriksen, it’s been a while since he tasted Champions League football, but now that both he and Tottenham will return this upcoming season, the 24-year-old hopes to help Spurs along the way.
"“I think everyone wants to assist everyone but, of course, I would love to help the team as much as possible, whether that’s by talking or showing the way,” Christian Eriksen said (via Tottenham’s official site).“It’s been a few years since I’ve been in the Champions League but I think it’s going to improve us as a team.”“It’s something that we as a club have wanted for a while now and we’ve been close in the last few years, but especially over the last year we’ve shown that we can do well.”"
The level of play in Europe’s elite club competition is unlike anything that Tottenham have faced before. Spurs have shown these last two seasons with Mauricio Pochettino as manager, that they can compete against the very best that England has to offer.
In the Europa League, they can hang with some of the other good European teams. But last season, they found out the hard way that a Champions League side is too much for them.
Sure, Dortmund had their entire first team fully available as the gap from second place to third in the Bundesliga was huge, and Pochettino decided to use a heavily rotated side to challenge Thomas Tuchel’s squad because Spurs were in a very close title hunt.
But that two-legged match-up showed that Tottenham have more work to do as they were clearly exposed in their bench, outmatched and outplayed in a lopsided 5-1 aggregate scoreline.
It’s a challenge that Eriksen knows Spurs must take next year.
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"“Of course, we need to take it to the next step next season and in the Champions League I think we can do that,” Eriksen continued.“We can improve a lot more and a lot quicker so I think it will be a fun season.”“We still haven’t tried playing a big team in a really important, big game.”“We’ve played all the English teams and we can do really well against them – even against Manchester City last season we did well and they got to the semi-finals of the Champions League, so hopefully we’ll be able to perform well too.”“We showed last season that we’re capable of doing big things and playing really good football.”“We proved that we are a difficult team to play against but also very attack-minded, we’re a team that wants to score a lot of goals and if we want to play in the Champions League we need to do all that.”"
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Tottenham’s first crack in their return to the Champions League starts in September. Who they’ll face and on what day and time will be determined near the beginning of the new league year.
But it’s to be expected that Spurs’ journey in their second only season of Champions League football will be difficult while challenging for a league title at the same time.