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Monaco, Like Tottenham, in the Form to Make It a Wembley Occasion to Remember
- Updated: September 13, 2016
The stage is set, and so is the team. Tickets for Tottenham Hotspur’s opening Champions League match against Monaco at Wembley have been little short of gold dust for the best part of a week. Given the stadium’s 90,000-capacity, Spurs will comfortably set a British record attendance for a Champions League home match.
It would be understandable if stepping away from White Hart Lane incurred at least a thimbleful of trepidation. It’s a bear pit under the lights, as Inter Milan could attest, having been taken apart there by Gareth Bale on a heady night in 2010, when they were defending the trophy.
Spurs have waited an excruciating six years for a second stab at the Champions League, having previously sat out nearly half-a-century of European Cup action. That followed Benfica coach Bela Guttmann predicting they would go on to dominate the competition (as recounted here by the Daily Telegraph’s John Ley), in a curious twist on the legendary Hungarian’s infamous curse.
Yet even if the misadventures of their north London neighbours Arsenal in their own temporary Champions League tenure must prompt a degree of caution, the sense is that Mauricio Pochettino’s side could not be more ready. Speaking to Talksport after Saturday’s 4-0 victory at Stoke, the coach described his team’s display as “almost perfect.” In a similar fashion to last season, Tottenham appear to have broken from a stroll into a sprint in the blink of an eye.
Lest we start writing the accolades before they take the field, however, it’s worth underlining that the opposition are unlikely to be willing cannon fodder.
Having looked a shambles in the corresponding fixture nine months ago, at White Hart Lane in the Europa League, Monaco are as prepared as they could be to attempt reparation for a night that accurately forecasted some of the misery that awaited them in the second half of their season.
Last December, a semi-reserve Spurs steamrollered Leonardo Jardim’s team, who were sent away with their tails between their legs in a 4-1 defeat, having required a win to have any hope of progressing to the knockout stage.
As the lesser-spotted Clinton N’Jie, among others, made merry in Monaco’s mess, the defensive disarray that would eventually allow Lyon to come back from the dead and rob them of second place in Ligue 1 was already writ large.
Missing out on …
