Lucas Moura Hat-trick Carries Tottenham to UCL Final
By Aaron Coe
In an incredible second-half effort, Tottenham Hotspur came from 3 goals down to beat Ajax on away goals and take Spurs into the UEFA Champions League Final in June.
For Spurs fans this all felt too familiar. Thinking back just a few months to the Carabao Cup, where Spurs lost in the semi-finals. An all too conservative home effort in the first leg was going to cost Tottenham Hotspur, as their talisman Harry Kane was out injured. But on this night, Dele Alli was on the pitch – he was also injured for the Carabao Cup second leg – and luckily so was Lucas Moura.
Another big difference between Tottenham’s previous semi-final this season, is they went on the road for leg two, WITH the lead. On this evening in Amsterdam, Spurs went into the match already trailing 1-0. Worse, with away-goals in play – unlike in the Carabao Cup – Spurs were going to HAVE to score at least one goal to force penalties. Of course, like anything else in this roller coaster of a season Tottenham Hotspur doesn’t make anything easy, but they keep plugging away which was the story of this Champions League semi-final second leg.
Disastrous Start for Spurs
Knowing you must score at least one goal on the road is bad enough, but when you give up a goal in the first five minutes, well things have now gotten much, much worse. As has been the case this season, Tottenham gave up an early goal. Now the team was down 2-0, but if they managed to score two goals, would win on away goals.
While Tottenham was not playing as poorly as they did in the first half of the first leg, they certainly were not clicking. With a couple exceptions, like Son’s effort off the post, his wasted toe poke, and an Eriksen blast straight at Andre Onana, the passes were just not connecting for Spurs. Frankly, the team looked a bit tired. While the team had their moments, Ajax looked the fresher, younger side.
Then things went from worse to complete disaster for Spurs. Just minutes after he had juked Toby Alderweireld to the ground only to pull his shot wide, Dusan Tadic was again having his way on the Spurs right. This time he held up and waited for the right moment. That moment came when Hakim Ziyech came running across the top of the box, behind a watching Victor Wanyama, and blasted a first-time effort across the face of Hugo Lloris and into the far corner of the net. 2-0 on the night, now 3-0 Ajax on aggregate.
At this point after seemingly getting their legs under them, Spurs were a bit shell-shocked and looked like a team in need of half-time. Luckily again for Spurs, half-time came and so did some tactical changes. Knowing Liverpool put three past Barcelona in the second half the night before, anything is possible in football, Tottenham had reason to believe.
Mauricio’s Major Change
With everything on the line, Mauricio Pochettino made his first change to start the second half. Victor Wanyama was partially culpable for the second goal and more crucially seemed to have tweaked his knee around 30 minutes in. Either way, on came Fernando Llorente and a new approach for Spurs.
Instead of the lumbering, slow build-up that has been a staple of a 240+ minute scoreless streak, Tottenham started playing direct football. No more knocking it around the back, the ball was going to move forward and for the most part there was only 1 target, Llorente. At one point it was obvious that Eriksen was telling both Vertonghen and Alderweireld to just knock it up to Llorente and they would figure it all from there.
For all the things Fernando Llorente can’t do like he could five years ago, he can sure still act as a big target and can contest every ball in his area. This was Llorente’s job in the second half and he did it well. His shots on the evening never came through, although his thigh was again close, but his ability to provide a target and help Tottenham keep the ball in the Ajax half was critical to Spurs success.
Tottenham’s Comeback Begins
There it was, Llorente had run through, Eriksen played a nifty left-footed pass and Dele Alli was on the end, hammering a solid volley. The problem was, it was at chest level and Onana was able to make the save. Building pressure was continuing to amount to nothing for Spurs, and here was another big chance, on-goal, and it wasn’t happening. Was this just going to be one of those games, where the keeper is huge, and Spurs come up short when it matters most? Not on this night!
Two minutes later, a long ball out of the back by Danny Rose – following a brave nutmeg – was touched out of the air by Lucas Moura. It was straight into the path of an onrushing Dele. As Dele played a big touch – fittingly a cruyff move – to get past Frenkie de Jong, Lucas Moura came screaming past them both took one big touch and then continued his sprint past everyone to calmly tuck the ball in the left-hand corner.
Like that the comeback was on, and suddenly a team that looked like they couldn’t score if their lives depended on it, was alive. 240+ minutes of agony and frustration, gone and the only question was if the ball was going to start bouncing their way. Less than four minutes later the ball did bounce Spurs way.
Rose crossed the ball to Son at the top of the penalty box, Son turned and played a soft pass over to Kieran Trippier, who was running in on the right. Tripps played a perfect square ball to Llorente who side footed the ball toward goal. Unfortunately for Llorente, Onana was there and he batted the ball. The ball came directly back to Llorente who tried to use his thigh of destiny to run the ball into the net only to again be blocked by Onana.
It looked like the moment had past as Onana then dove to cover the ball. Fortunately for Spurs, when he did this he ran into his own player and didn’t maintain possession. The ball bounced to Lucas Moura who used a few touches to gain possession and then blasted a left footed shot into the far-left corner of the net. 2-2 on the night, but Spurs were still down 3-2 on aggregate.
Goal 2 until Injury Time
With 30 minutes plus injury time to go, there was a lot of defending to be done on Ajax’s part and more chances to be had for Tottenham. As is often the case, when a team is so focused on defending, the attack begins to falter, and a team brings their fate upon themselves. This is what happened to Ajax on Wednesday evening.
Sure, Ajax had some chances, notably Ziyech, who had a trifecta of misses in the second half, missing the target, hitting the post and forcing a big injury time save from Lloris, but Tottenham dominated much of the possession. Honestly, now I know what the Manchester City fans felt until VAR of course. While my heart was racing, I was sure Spurs were going to find a way.
First was Llorente firing over from outside the box in the 62nd minute. Minutes later Llorente had consecutive headers from Trippier blocked. After a couple Ajax corners, Tottenham had a corner of their own. Trippier drove a beauty in and up rose Toby Alderweireld redirecting the ball toward the back post, only to see it sail wide. Then things got a bit chippie as Danny Rose and Hakim Ziyech traded yellow cards. Danny’s cost him the end of the game as Pochettino pulled Rose, presumably to avoid a red. But before Rose was taken off for Ben Davies at 82’ Ziyech had his big chance to seal the win, as he hit the right post off a nice Donny van de Beek set up.
Pochettino had brought on Erik Lamela already for Kieran Trippier moving Moussa Sissoko to right back. While Lamela has been out for a while and didn’t leave much of a mark on the game, it was a sign that Pochettino was not going to leave any rounds in the chamber as Spurs fought for the win. One contribution from Lamela was when he played in Son on the left, who ultimately blasted over from a tight angle with just 3 minutes left in regulation.
As the clock wore down it seemed chances were getting fewer, so when the Spurs got their 9th corner of the match, maybe this was it. Lamela’s cross sort of went off Fernando Llorente’s back and flew to Jan Vertonghen. Like Alderweireld before him, this was the ex-Ajax man’s shot. Vertonghen headed for the corner only to have it bounce off the crossbar. The rebound came right back to him, but on his right side and Jan didn’t make clean contact as the ball was blocked a foot in front of the goal.
Now with only two minutes left in regulation, you had to begin to wonder if those Vertonghen attempts were going to come back to haunt Tottenham. A foul and a final Ajax substitution later and we were into injury time and the last 5 minutes of the game.
Injury time and Moura’s Miracle
Injury time started off the way Ajax wanted it, as they had the ball and were able to earn a corner. While the corner didn’t amount to anything, it did waste over a minute of the extra time. As both teams seemed to scramble, Ajax almost found the nail to put in Tottenham’s coffin.
Substitute Daley Sinkgraven set up Ziyech for one last shot at goal. This time Hugo Lloris came up huge and made a big save keeping his team in the game. Tottenham came back from that big save and worked the ball down to earn a corner. This time Eriksen found Llorente who just couldn’t get up high enough to get over the ball as it sailed off his head over the goal. As that effort was followed up by an Eriksen shot that was blocked and ultimately an Onana goal kick, it seemed things were over for Spurs. Only they weren’t.
Onana took too long on the goal kick and got a yellow card, but with likely only 1 minute or so left in the game, I’m not sure he cared at that point. His booming goal kick was headed back by Jan Vertonghen, but Ajax got to the ball first and cleared up to midfield. At midfield Son gathered possession and dribbled square across the pitch and ultimately laid the ball back to Moussa Sissoko to knock it up field for one last opportunity.
Sissoko blasted the ball from behind midfield toward Fernando Llorente. Llorente battled for the ball and I’m not sure if he or the defender touched it, but someone did, and the ball fell to Dele Alli. As the defense converged on Dele, he saw Lucas Moura flash like lightening. With the one of the deftest touches you will ever see, Dele nudged the ball around the defenders into the space.
Two more Ajax defenders were now closing on the ball, but so was Lucas Moura. There was no preparatory touch this time, just Moura screaming through making clean contact with his left before the two defenders closed the space. The ball skipped across the turf, past Onana’s outstretched arm and into the corner. I screamed yes, fell to my knees and then looked for VAR. No VAR, the goal was clean, in about 4 seconds Tottenham had made the impossible possible as Lucas Rodrigues Moura de Silva capped his hat-trick and left Spurs in elation as the Ajax players fell to their knees almost in unison.
Tottenham Hotspur had once again breathed life into their Champions League campaign when it seemed there was no life left. The away goal that didn’t apply in the Carabao Cup sure did here, and Spurs once again left the match tied but victorious. Now with a trip to Madrid and a familiar Liverpool to face, there is just one step left for a team that must feel like destiny is calling and for at least one more night it sure did!