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Friday Nov 15, 2024
Friday, 10 May 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
AMSTERDAM (Reuters): Lucas Moura conjured the second Champions League miracle in 24 hours with a last-gasp winner to complete his hat-trick and a 3-2 win to send Tottenham Hotspur past a shattered Ajax Amsterdam into the final on away goals on Wednesday.
A day after Liverpool beat Barcelona 4-0 to overturn a 3-0 first-leg deficit, Tottenham came back from the dead after Ajax had looked certain to reach their first final for 23 years.
Ajax skipper Matthijs de Ligt’s fifth-minute header and a superb 35th minute effort by Hakim Ziyech put Ajax 3-0 ahead on aggregate by halftime at a raucous Johan Cruyff Arena.
But Tottenham were transformed after the break as they became the eighth English club to reach the European Cup final, where they will face Liverpool in Madrid on 1 June.
With veteran Spanish striker Fernando Llorente on as a second-half substitute, Tottenham refused to lay down and when Moura scored in the 55th minute the impossible began to seem possible for the north London club.
Four minutes later he fired through a crowd to equalise on the night and after both sides hit the woodwork in the heart-pumping finale, Moura drilled into the corner in the sixth minute of stoppage time to leave Ajax crestfallen.
“Football gives us moments we can’t imagine,”Moura, who scored the goal in Barcelona in the final group game to keep Tottenham alive in the competition, said.
Tottenham’s only other European Cup semi-final came 57 years ago when they lost to Benfica and their improbable victory left the away fans in a state of delirium and Argentine manager Mauricio Pochettino in tears at the end.
“The emotion is amazing, thank you to football,”Pochettino said. “My players are heroes – in the last year I was telling everyone this group are heroes.
“They are all heroes but Lucas Moura was a superhero.”
Tottenham had suffered three consecutive defeats in all competitions before Wednesday’s second leg and when Ajax led 2-0 at halftime, there was a celebratory mood inside the jam-packed Johan Cruyff Arena as their fans’ thoughts turned to Madrid.
But their joy turned into a nightmare as they were overwhelmed by a Tottenham side who dispensed with complicated tactics and simply threw the kitchen sink at their hosts.
“Football can be very beautiful and it can be very cruel, we have had to experience that today,” Ajax manager Erik Ten Hag said.
