It was a gloriously warm afternoon in Enfield. The sun was out and the air was still, and it made for a particularly pleasant walk to Tottenham’s training ground. Past the Pied Bull pub on Bull’s Cross, on to Whitewebbs Lane, left into Hotspur Way and, finally, into a shimmering, gleaming complex where, shortly after 1pm, Mauricio Pochettino tried to make sense of the madness that had taken place the night before.
Few can remember seeing the 47-year-old as animated as he was at the Etihad Stadium amid the celebrations that followed one of the most dramatic football nights in living memory. Manchester City 4 Tottenham 3 – a contest that veered this way and that and ultimately turned on two VAR decisions, one so late it felt like the final twist of a pulsating movie. Keyser Söze’s vanishing limp, Raheem Sterling’s offside goal. We’ll be talking about both for years to come.
And there at the end, cavorting in front of the away supporters alongside players and staff, was Pochettino. Wide-eyed and delirious, a man possessed by euphoria. One could only wonder how he would be in the cold light of the day and having got practically no sleep following Tottenham’s late flight back to London.
As it turned out he looked pretty good. Clean shaven and invigorated having overseen a reasonably light training session involving those members of his squad still able to walk after the monumental exertions of Wednesday. He skipped on to the podium of Spurs’ press auditorium, took his seat and waited for questions. There was, of course, only one topic on everyone’s mind – that game. The game.
“An amazing and crazy and unbelievable night,” is how Pochettino described it having conceded that, despite the freshness of his appearance he, like his players, felt “tired”.
None of them had really slept and even now, what they had achieved in Manchester – a triumph against the odds and a place in the semi-finals of Europe’s elite competition for the first time in 57 years – had them feeling like “we are still in a dream”.
Yet there also came an insistence that all involved were “strong and with energy” and ready to go again, which they need to be given it is City at the Etihad Stadium again on Saturday, this time in the Premier League and as part of Tottenham’s efforts to nail down a top-four place. You know, just in case they do not win the Champions League.
That Spurs can still be spoken of in those terms at this stage of the season is remarkable, and not just because it busts the keyboard warriors’ theory of this being a squad full of bottlers overseen by a fraud of a manager.
The bigger picture also comes into play, specifically the circumstances Pochettino and his players have overcome in order to find themselves at this most captivating of junctions.
No new players arriving in the summer or in January and a stadium move that became so protracted it threatened to engulf everyone at the club in a fog of doom and gloom.
And if that was not enough, Harry Kane’s ankle has kept giving way, striking again in the first leg against City and threatening to prove decisive in the second. But Tottenham fought and found a way, as has been the case throughout the season, and it is this show of character Pochettino appeared almost compelled to speak about on Thursday.
“To be in the position we are now is because we had the belief, the faith and trust in our quality,” he said. “No one believed in November we would be in this position in April. But we had the belief and that is the most important thing.
“This is a massive example for us – how important it is never to give up, to always have faith and believe in yourself, your teammates, the club, the fans. All our decisions we take are to help the club and this amazing history we are writing today will be a massive example for us in the future.”
Nothing has been achieved yet, and as Pochettino conceded himself, Ajax will prove stern opponents in the two-leg semi-final on 30 April and 8 May. “They beat Real Madrid and Juventus and so are more favourite than us,” he said.
But, equally, there is no escaping the sense that, post-Manchester, this is a changed club, one able to stand a little taller, boast a little louder and, having at last moved into their home, well and truly able to move on from the bad vibes of late winter and early spring.
Pochettino even allowed himself to indulge in talk of it being Tottenham’s destiny to win the Champions League, and if that sounds a little far fetched it was in keeping with the wondrous, slightly bewildered mood of the day after the night few at the club will ever forget.
