Chelsea man told to ‘take revenge on Tottenham’ after Champions League game

Chelsea winger Hakim Ziyech has admitted that he has been urged to take revenge on Tottenham on Ajax’s behalf for the manner in which the Lilywhites knocked the Dutch side out of the Champions League in the 2019 semi-final.

Tottenham’s sensational comeback in Amsterdam was one of the greatest ever Champions League comebacks of all time, with the North Londoners finding themselves 3-0 down three-quarters of the way into the tie and looking down and out.

However, Lucas Moura produced a stunning hat-trick in the second half at the Johan Cruijff Arena to send Spurs through to the final in Madrid, leaving the Ajax players and fans devastated.

Even though it has been over a year and a half since that momentous evening, it looks like the wounds from that night have still not headed for the Ajax stars involved, with Dusan Tadic insisting earlier this the week that the Eredivisie side would have given Liverpool a tougher game if they had made to the final (Goal.com).

Ziyech left the Dutch club to join Tottenham’s London rivals, Chelsea back in February but a knee injury has meant that he has only made two appearances in all competitions for the Blues to date.

Speaking about the 2019 Champions League semi-final, the Moroccan international told The Daily Mirror: “What can I say about that?

“A child’s dream was stolen. It is hard, it is painful. It is crazy what happened at that time at that point. It is hard to accept.

“For me personally I think we deserved to go to the final but in the end you don’t always get what you deserve.

“You have to take that as a lesson and I did. Now I know always that the game is not over until the referee whistles.

“It helped me improve, to never give up. And people, even in Holland, they say: ‘Now you can take revenge on Tottenham’.

“But as a player, you always want to win, it doesn’t matter who it is. Even if it is Tottenham or whoever, you just want to win the game.”

Spurs Web Opinion

It is understandable why the match is hard to forget for the Ajax players involved but the reality is that we absolutely deserved to go through on the back of our performance in Amsterdam. There is nothing more I would like than for Ajax to drop down to the Europa League and be drawn against us so that we can give them a proper walloping this time.

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