Tottenham Hotspur may not have the lead in this Europa League quarter-final, but they do have a sense of life. They were much the better team against an awkward but uninspired Eintracht Frankfurt, in a 1-1 home draw that could have gone much worse.
Ange Postecoglou can tell his players they have the winning of this tie even in Frankfurt. He himself might say that would make a difference from the rest of the talk around Spurs of late. There’s a bit of hope and spirit. They’re alive in a competition that could yet save the manager’s job and the season, when the campaign has seemed moribund.
Instead, Pedro Porro personified a spirit of revival, recovering from his own error for Hugo Ekitike’s fine opening strike to score a brilliant goal of his own. James Maddison cut the ball back for Poro to flick the ball in with his heel. It was vintage Lee Sharpe, or Gianfranco Zola, depending on when you want to hark back to.
In truth, the quality of the goals belonged to a match other than this one. It might be easy to carp about the level of the sides and these Europa League quarter-finals, but the context matters.
It would have been very easy for Spurs to implode after Ekitike’s goal. After months of noise and doubt, which led to the manager openly talking about his own future before the game, the excuse was there for the stadium and the team to simply deflate.
That didn’t happen. There was a response and a show of some resilience. The crowd did initially rally to all of the pre-game imagery of Spurs’ success in this competition in 1982 and 1984. There was some sense of occasion, which made the timing of Ekitike’s strike in the sixth minute all the worse.
Spurs then showed some of their best qualities, if not quite giving their best possible performance. There was still something lacking, not least that key second goal.
Spurs did have the best chances by some distance and were the superior side. While sitting off might have been Frankfurt’s deliberate tactic, Postecoglou’s side made them much more uncomfortable than they might have anticipated. Frankfurt were dependent on a series of saves from the impressive Kaua Santos to keep the score down, especially amid a second-half flurry. One acrobatic effort from a Son Heung-min shot was spectacular.
That was still almost surpassed by one of his very last acts. With Spurs looking to make good on so much pressure, and striving for what would have been a deserved winner, Rodrigo Bentancur headed the ball back across goal for the arriving Micky van de Ven. The defender didn’t quite get the connection he wanted but it almost seemed like it could be fortuitous as the ball bounced up off the ground and looked set to drop into the net… only for Santos to again use his agility to touch it over the crossbar.
