That’s all from me. Here’s some bonus reading, in the shape of Jamie Jackson’s match report from Lyon. Bye!
Ed Aarons has filed his report from White Hart Lane, and here it is:
Hope is not lost for Ange Postecoglou. On another night, the Tottenham manager might have been celebrating a wonder goal from the outstanding Lucas Bergvall as his side looked forward to next week’s second leg in Germany with a healthy advantage.
But it is a reflection of how things have been going for Postecoglou that somehow Spurs did not manage to win this game after conceding an early goal to Hugo Ekitiké. Despite Bergvall’s best efforts as the 19-year-old covered every blade of grass for the cause in a performance that belied his age, they could not build on Pedro Porro’s well-taken equaliser as Eintracht Frankfurt held on for a draw that will probably make them favourites to progress to the semi-finals.
Much more here:
Ange Postecoglou has a chat. It’s quite a positive one, which is a nice change.
I can’t ask any more of the lads. It was disappointing to concede the way we did but after that I thought we were well in control of the game. I thought the performance was first rate. The goal was the stuff we’ve worked on, getting people in those areas, across the front of their defence. I had a feeling they wouldn’t be too expansive today, I thought they’d play fairly conservatively. The biggest blow we had was conceding so early, because that played into their hands.
On any other night you’d go away with a comfortable victory. If we repeat that performance I definitely think we give ourselves a chance. I don’t expect the second game will be too open either. It’ll come down to moments. I just think if we get those moments next week one of them will fall for us and we’ll get what we need. The second leg’s going to be tight for sure.
Kulusevski, he says, is “touch and go” for the second leg – no chance of starting, but “a possibility of being involved”.
It’s all over in Lyon and Manchester United, having scored with the last kick of the first half, have conceded with the last kick of the second. It finishes 2-2 there. In Glasgow it’s still 0-0 between 10-man Rangers and Athletic Bilbao, now in the 13th minute of stoppage time.
Manchester United have just taken the lead in Lyon, Joshua Zirkzee in the 88th minute.
Final score: Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Eintracht Frankfurt
90+5 mins: And that’s it! Spurs had their chances but they could only convert one, and it’s all square and all to play for when they go to Germany next week.
Updated
90+3 mins: Spurs should have scored! Porro sends the ball into the area, Bentancur heads back across goal, and Van de Ven flies in to convert from five yards, but he barely makes contact and Santos saves!
Updated
90+3 mins: Forty seconds to play and Skhiri fouls Sarr. A bit far out for a shot …
90+1 mins: There will be three minutes of stoppage time, or thereabouts. They start with Can Uzun replacing Gotze, and Niels Nkounkou coming on for Nathaniel Brown.
89 mins: Frankfurt bring Elye Wahi on for Ekitike.
89 mins: There have been no second-half goals in any of the three Europa League quarter-finals currently ongoing. Athletic Bilbao have missed a penalty against Rangers, though.
88 mins: Another Spurs sub, Solanke going off, Richarlison coming on.
87 mins: Two mistakes from Eintracht, one to give the ball away, and then Theate slipping and missing his challenge, but Solanke is closed down well and sends in a blind centre which comes to nothing.
86 mins: Tel curls in a cross, which Theate turns behind at the far post. The referee gives a goal kick, and books Tel for being annoyed about it.
85 mins: Eintracht have pretty much settled on the edge of their area. Spurs are hunting a breakthrough, but are they capable of craft as well as pressure?
82 mins: Chance! Spence pulls back to Brennan Johnson, on his left foot, 18 yards out, level with the near post, but he blasts high!
79 mins: Djed Spence, Mathys Tel and Pape Sarr come on, Udogie, Maddison and Son depart.
78 mins: Is a draw enough for Spurs if they are to win this tie? Probably not, in all likelihood? Anyway, they’re readying a triple substitution.
76 mins: Spurs seem to have spent about a third of this game taking corners, but in fact there have only been eight. They’ve just had another, which Santos claimed.
72 mins: The free-kick leads to a corner, which leads to another Bentancur header. This time he gets more power on it, but it’s straight at Kaua Santos, who catches.
71 mins: Another booking, Kristensen a bit harshly punished for making not a lot of contact with Udogie.
70 mins: A first substitution, Eintracht taking off Bahoya and bringing on Fares Chaibi.
68 mins: Then a good spell from Spurs. This is still entertainingly chaotic stuff. They win a corner, which is better than Gotze’s but still leads to nothing.
Updated
66 mins: Which is taken by Gotze and really profoundly rubbish.
65 mins: The referee rightly ignores Brennan Johnson’s dive just outside Eintracht’s penalty area and the visitors break, Ekitike eventually winning a corner.
63 mins: A spell of attacking pressure from Eintracht ends with Gotze heading inside to Bahoya, who has little time to react and volleys over the bar.
61 mins: A yellow card! Son loses the ball to Kristensen, who runs away with it but as he does so Bahoya slides into Son and completely wipes him out.
58 mins: And another save! This time Madison gets into the area, jinks towards the byline, cuts back onto his left foot, leaving Theate on his arse, and sends in a shot that Santos this time saves with his thigh.
57 mins: And now they hit the bar again! From the corner Bentancur wins the header, which I think deflects off a defender before looping over Santos and into that pesky woodwork.
Updated
56 mins: And now a fantastic save from Santos! The ball runs through to Son to the left of goal, and he pushes it onto his right foot before curling a shot across goal that Santos does really well to push round the post.
55 mins: Bergvall crashes the ball into the bar! The Swede starts to celebrate as the ball heads goalwards, and is slack-jawed when it crashes against the woodwork and bounces to safety.
52 mins: Kaua Santos, under no pressure, tries to sidefoots a pass to his right-back but sends the ball straight to Son, but thankfully with enough pace that it bounces off him and out of play.
50 mins: Chance for Eintracht! Good build-up down the right ends with a pass through to Bahoya, but he chooses to cross when he should have shot, and Spurs clear.
48 mins: A nice run from Udogie takes him past Kristensen and ends with a lovely cross, but there’s nobody in the middle to convert it.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! The home side get the second half started.
Meanwhile at Tottenham the players are back out, with no half-timely changes to report.
Manchester United equalised in Lyon moments before half-time, through Leny Yoro. So it’s 1-1 there, and all three currently-contested quarter-finals are all square at what is effectively quarter-time.
Half time: Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Eintracht Frankfurt
45+1 mins: The referee plays all of two seconds’ stoppage time. 1-1 in goals, 2-2 in shots on target, thanks to that last-moment Eintracht effort, and encouragement for both teams.
45 mins: Eintracht’s best chance since the goal ends with a shooting chance for Ekitike, 16 yards out and on his left foot, but his finish is feeble and Vicario saves.
43 mins: In the third of the quarter-final games being played currently Rangers remain at 0-0 against tournament favourites Athletic Bilbao, but Robin Propper has been sent off (just 13 minutes into the game, indeed).
41 mins: “Any idea if ‘Eintracht’ really translates as ‘harmony’ as Google Translate claims?” asks Joshua Reynolds. In the context of a football team name I believe it is roughly the same as the English “United”.
38 mins: A brief period where nothing much happens at all. There’ll be another one of those in about seven minutes.
Updated
35 mins: Eintracht have a spell, but Spurs stay resolute on the edge of their area and eventually the spell breaks rather than the defence.
33 mins: Another Spurs corner is headed away. Lyon have taken a 1-0 lead over Manchester United in their game at the venue Uefa are calling the OL Stadium.
32 mins: “Those are tremendous colours Frankfurt are wearing, Simon. Classic,” writes Simon McMahon, who I believe may be Dundee-based and not coincidentally biased towards orange-shirted, black-shorted sides. “We stayed there last summer during the Euros, while watching Scotland in the knockouts, and the people were great, so I’m rooting for them tonight. Sorry Ange.”
30 mins: Son attempts a completely ludicrous shot from way out on the left, which misses by an absolute mile. The game is being played at a really high pace, and I don’t think either side can claim to be in any kind of control, but Spurs have done most of the attacking since Eintracht’s early goal.
GOAL! Tottenham 1-1 Eintracht Frankfurt (Porro, 26 mins)
Maddison finds space in the area and Solanke finds him in it. He gets to the byline, pulls back to Porro, and the marauding full-back scores with a left-foot backheel flick!
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23 mins: “Is the Frankfurt’s Gotze the same Mario Gotze of World Cup final scorer fame?” wonders William Lane. The very same. “He’s one of those players that was always younger than you thought and all of sudden was at the end of their career with a bunch of medals without seeming to have done an awful lot (one of the upsides of playing for Bayern I suppose). Interested to know how he’s doing nowadays? Is he still the tidy attacking midfielder of old or has he fallen back to a deeper playmaking role?” Who’s saying he’s at the end of his career? The lad is only 32! Still generally playing in a No10ish role, I believe. Author of this classy goal in this very competition:
20 mins: Spurs win, and waste, another corner. They are, though, having a decent spell.
18 mins: Spurs go close, twice, kind of! First Solanke’s pull-back finds Son, but Tuta does brilliantly to poke the ball away from him, then Solanke crosses towards the back post, where Theate this time does well to win it, and anyway it turns out that Solanke was just offside.
15 mins: Spurs have a corner now, but Son curls it onto the head of the defender level with the near post.
12 mins: A shot on target from Spurs, as Solanke reaches Son’s cross first, but his flicked header is miserably feeble and Kauã Santos picks it up.
Updated
11 mins: A long crossfield pass from Porro to Son, and an absolutely phenomenal first touch from the Korean, earns a very handy chance to cross the ball from the left, but the keeper claims it.
10 mins: Two corners in quick succession for the visitors, but they can’t make anything of either of them.
8 mins: The goal came from Maddison unnecessarily trying to take on his man in midfield and losing the ball. Within 10 seconds it was in the back of the net.
GOAL! Tottenham 0-1 Eintracht Frankfurt (Ekitike, 6 mins)
That is just great forward play! Everyone knows what’s coming when Ekitike gets the ball on the left flank, but nobody was stopping him as he cut inside Porro and from 25 yards speared a low shot into the far corner.
Updated
4 mins: A pretty wild first few minutes, but Spurs have sensibly slowed the pace down with a long spell of not-very-adventurous possession.
2 mins: Chelsea have already wrapped up a handy away win in the first leg of their Conference League quarter-final. Here’s a report:
1 min: Eintracht get the ball rolling.
In fact they aren’t.
Victory for Spurs in the pre-match coin toss! I’m not sure it’s exclamation-mark-worthy either. Looks like they’re going to kick off.
The players are in the tunnel! Football just three and a bit minutes away, by my watch.
Potentially handy knowledge: three members of the Frankfurt line-up are a booking away from missing the second leg: star forward Hugo Ekitike, captain Robin Coch, and Eliyes Skhiri, plus the substitute Niels Nkounkou. Tottenham’s Lucas Bergvall, plus the substitute Yves Bissouma, are in the same boat.
“The way he’s thinking football, the way he was playing football with his teams. I’m very proud of him,” says Dino Toppmöller, the Frankfurt manager, of his dad, Klaus. Dino was named after Dino Zoff, the legendary Italy goalkeeper, who notably was once extremely grumpy with me on the phone. To be fair, I’d be pretty grumpy if I had to speak to myself in Italian, I’m rubbish at speaking Italian.
The teams!
The protagonists in tonight’s drama will be the following:
Tottenham Hotspur: Vicario, Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Udogie, Bergvall, Bentancur, Maddison, Johnson, Solanke, Son. Subs: Austin, Whiteman, Bissouma, Richarlison, Tel, Gray, Spence, Odobert, Sarr, Davies, Moore.
Eintracht Frankfurt: Santos, Kristensen, Koch, Theate, Brown, Skhiri, Tuta, Gotze, Larsson, Bahoya, Ekitike. Subs: Grahl, Siljevic, Amenda, Chaibi, Wahi, Dahoud, Uzun, Chandler, Nkounkou, Batshuayi, Collins, Fenyo.
Referee: Szymon Marciniak (Poland).
Hello world!
Perhaps we are not quite at the pointy end of this competition – hence this match between a team that has lost four of their last six league games and one that has lost only three – but this is an intriguing tie, between a Spurs side struggling against what their manager, Ange Postecoglue, called in the build-up “glass-half-empty rhetoric” and an Eintracht Frankfurt team that lost only two of their first 19 games this season in all competitions, followed by nine of 22 since (second in the Bundesliga at the start of December and within grasping distance of Bayern Munich, they would be ninth in a table that started then with only just over half as many points as the leaders).
“Anything you achieve in life usually comes with a struggle. Certainly, everything I have achieved in my life has come with a struggle from a professional perspective,” Postecoglou said, emphasising his “burning ambition, desire and determination” to claim this trophy. “This is just another struggle, but never through this struggle have I lost the will to fight for what I think is the right thing to do and I’ll continue to do that.”
Postecoglou described an “alternate universe [where] everything Tottenham does is negative”. Well, they are 14th in the league. But like all the teams remaining in this competition they know that however poor this campaign has become, victory in the Europa League final in Bilbao next month, and the reward of a place in the Champions League, would turn things around pretty sharpish. What I’m hoping is that this leads to a certain amount of desperation, because in football desperation can make things quite fun quite quickly.
Anyway, and most importantly, welcome!
