Tottenham fans might be celebrating Real Madrid victory – but result could become a curse on the club
It has long been chairman Daniel Levy’s fear that a slump in form at Real Madrid could lead to his brilliant Argentine manager being tempted away
THE only distant dread for Tottenham’s jubilant fans as they cavorted back down Wembley Way, was that this blessed result could turn out to be a curse in disguise.
That one of the greatest results in their club’s history — a thoroughly deserved hammering of the back-to-back champions of Europe — could spell the beginning of the end of Mauricio Pochettino’s reign.
It has long been chairman Daniel Levy’s fear that a slump in form at Real Madrid could lead to his brilliant Argentine manager being tempted away.
That the hotseat at the Bernabeu is the one position he would never be able to turn down.
No matter how Tottenham are ascending to the European elite, as Pochettino boldly stated last night.
And at Real Madrid, where two successive defeats is certainly regarded as a slump, they are plunging towards full-blown crisis. Zinedine Zidane has led Real to their 11th and 12th European Cups as a manager.
And he won another with a magnificent goal as a player in Glasgow.
So the World Coach of the Year has plenty of credit in the bank.
WEMBLEY? NO WAY Real Madrid had NEVER played at Wembley before last night... but have at Kilmarnock, Ipswich and Ninian Park
Last night he was playing it cool.
He said he’d have no fear whatever happens this season. This was just a dry spell. He would keep calm and carry on.
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Yet this is not a club renowned for its patience. It is not a club used to having its backside handed to it on a plate.
Not a team used to being given the runaround by Spurs — the sort of club they occasionally plunder for top talent — who were playing keep-ball against them for minutes on end.
Zidane’s future is not in immediate peril but it will be if he does not buck up Madrid’s fortunes — and pretty damned quickly.
There is a feverish atmosphere in Spain right now, over more important matters than football.
Yet the sight of Barcelona disappearing over the horizon at the top of La Liga never goes down well in the Bernabeu boardroom.
Perhaps in this year of Catalan independence more than most.
This was meant to have been a historic night for Real.
They have had plenty of experience on British soil — winning two of their 12 European Cups at Hampden Park, one at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium last May — and actually losing at the old Ninian Park, Derby’s Baseball Ground and Portman Road, Ipswich.
Yet the world’s most famous club had never graced this hallowed turf, at the old Wembley or the new.
Here, the venue of legends, the venue of the actual fifty-quid-a-night car park.
This place has seen it all. The White Horse Final. The Matthews Final. The 1966 World Cup Final.
And now the night they charged fifty pounds sterling to park your motor for the duration of a Champions League group-stage tie.
But while World Footballer of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo and his supporting cast were on parade — with the one notable exception of Gareth Bale — they had hardly arrived in their finest flush of form.
Defeat last weekend at Girona, Manchester City’s Spanish off-shoot, had left them eight points adrift of Barca and four behind Valencia. The first team to retain Old Big Ears during the Champions League era, who had doubled up with the Spanish title last term, have been stripped of their majesty and made to look mortal.
After Spurs had drawn in the Bernabeu a fortnight ago, there was no inferiority complex.
Even though Pochettino’s men had suffered defeats against West Ham and Manchester United since then, they were full of it from the off.
On nights like this, these players seem to listen to ‘Glory, Glory Tottenham Hotspur’ and take the lyrics literally.
“Tottenham are the greatest team the world has ever seen . . . ”
Well Real Madrid, who looked as if they might have been entitled to that accolade when they wiped the floor with Juventus 4-1 in last year’s final, were unable to live with them.
It wasn’t that Ronaldo was anonymous, far from it.
He was teasing Ben Davies with a shimmy and a back-heel early on. And later in the first half, he produced just the four step-overs and a dummy of Davinson Sanchez before his shot was deflected into the side netting.
No player has ever minced towards an opposition penalty area quite as menacingly as this preening Portuguese.
Yet despite a late consolation goal, this was not his night.
And Luka Modric, who had been almost as brilliant for Spurs as Bale when Inter Milan’s European champions were beaten at White Hart Lane in 2010, was making the difficult things look simple as usual.
But Spurs were better. More cultured and polished than their illustrious visitors but with added tenacity. The dog-and-bone Galacticos.
Harry Kane was absolutely bullying defenders, like he does on his very best days. Like that breakthrough performance in a 5-3 victory over Chelsea three seasons ago when he made Gary Cahill look like a rag doll.
This time, Sergio Ramos — the baddest defender on the planet — was getting similar treatment. And, on 27 minutes, Spurs fully merited their lead when Harry Winks sent a pass out to Kieran Trippier, who volleyed over a cross for Dele to poke home.
After the break, Dele was at it again. This time with a shot deflecting off Ramos who, for once in his wonderfully mean-spirited career, was made to look humble.
The third goal was sublime, Dele to Kane to Christian Eriksen — and then Wembley was suddenly a joyous mass of approximately 300,000 limbs flailing around in ecstasy.
Eyes wide, mouths agog, delirium beyond all dreams.
But when they wake up from this fantasy, will Pochettino, the architect of it all, be sticking around for the long haul?
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