Tottenham beating Real Madrid is the night they finally grew up seven years after Gareth Bale humiliated Maicon
It was one thing to beat Dortmund, another Liverpool, but to hammer European champions shows Mauricio Pochettino's side have reached new level
IT was a night they will never forget.
White Hart Lane is Tottenham's home, physically and spiritually.
N17 is where the club will always belong.
But last night, a few miles round the North Circular, Wembley roared with a guttural, joyous,
unrelenting outpouring of delight.
It was one thing to beat Borussia Dortmund, decent as they are.
Another to batter Liverpool into a humiliating retreat back up the M6.
Yet to take Real Madrid - REAL MADRID - apart, hand out a stunning defeat to the double European champions, was something altogether different. The stuff of dreams, even if it is only the start of November.
Many of the 84,000 inside Wembley were at the Lane almost exactly seven years earlier. Then they were chanting "Bale! Bale!" and "Taxi for Maicon".
On Wednesday night, it was a different song-list. In honour of Maurico Pochettino, Harry Kane, Dele Alli - and others.
And it felt like the night in which this Spurs team really grew up, too.
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In Madrid two weeks ago, Poch's team went onto the pitch having to shake off their sense of inferiority.
Barely a minute into that game in the Bernabeu, Christian Eriksen, sensing the lurking presence of Luka Modric over his shoulder on half-way, lost his composure and the ball.
By the end of that game, though, with Spurs more than worthy of their point, things had changed.
So when Eriksen blitzed through the middle to take Kane's angled pass and bear down on goal for the Spurs third, he was able to hold off the very same Modric without even a fleeting thought of doubt.
The incredible thing was that it could have been more. Dele was sheepish about that headed miss from the outstanding Kieran Trippier's cross, while each and every player wearing all-white was substantially better than his opposite number.
Of course, if Wednesday night is the summit of their achievements, rather than the base camp for the assault on greater peaks, it will mean as little in a greater sense as that victory over Inter in 2010.
But last night, as the bulk of those lucky 84,000 made their way home, it felt like lift-off.
It felt more significant. It felt like Spurs were announcing themselves as a real team.
Martin Lipton is the author of "White Hart Lane - The Spurs Glory Years 1899-2017"
