Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino more than played his part in completing the ultimate of turnarounds as we took a point from Barcelona at the Nou Camp last night to book our place in the last 16 of the Champions League.
With poor results opening up our European campaign, and certainly points dropped in a frustrating manner, in more recent matches we picked up the points we needed to keep our qualification hopes alive and in matching Inter Milan’s result last night against PSV Eindhoven, we secured our passage through much to the delight of everyone.
Having trailed in the game, Lucas Moura’s leveller five minutes from the fulltime whistle was enough on the night and speaking to Sky Sports in his post-game press conference, Poch admitted that in many ways we had pulled off the unthinkable but he always had faith in the players to complete ‘mission impossible’.
“I remember after the result in Eindhoven, no one believed in us. It was a mission impossible – but we are here. We are on the next station. It’s a massive achievement for the club. We are so happy for our fans. It’s a massive boost for the club and to have the chance to play the next round in our new stadium is a massive motivation for us.”
Poch also had special praise for Moussa Sissoko’s performance on the night, especially as he filled in at right-back following the substitution of youngster Kyle Walker-Peters. I’m sure plenty of fans will be on board with that following is efforts last night.
Qualification was all that mattered though, job done and onto the next one.