It has been 8 years since Tottenham last qualified for the quarterfinals of the Champions League. The last time the club made it to the last eight was in 2011 under the stewardship of Harry Redknapp.
Spurs showed tremendous resiliency to overcome AC Milan in the round of 16 stage to set up a tie with Real Madrid the quarterfinals. As it happened, Madrid thrashed Spurs 5-0 over two legs to march comfortably into the semifinals, thanks in part to Peter Crouch’s early sending off in the first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Here is the spurs 11 that took to the field in the second leg at White Hart Lane:
Heurelho Gomes,
Vedran Corluka, Michael Dawson, William Gallas, Benoit Assou-Ekotto,
Tom Huddlestone, Luka Modric,
Aaron Lennon, Rafael van der Vaart, Gareth Bale
Roman Pavlyuchenko.
While Luka Modric and Gareth Bale moved on to Madrid a couple of seasons after this game, one player who took the field for Madrid on the night and scored in the first leg, moved the other way in the summer of 2011- Emmanuel Adebayor.
Looking at the names above certainly brings some perspective on how much the club has improved over the last eight years. Only Modric and Bale from that team would stand a chance of starting in the current Spurs team.
Let’s hope that Pochettino’s Tottenham are better placed to handle a quarterfinal than this team was all those years ago.
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