Tottenham trophy hopes boosted as Lucas Bergvall takes advantage of fortune to leave Liverpool furious
Share:
Two minutes that defined Lucas Bergvall’s night could come to define Tottenham’s season if it helps send them to Wembley and, whisper it quietly, to a first piece of silverware since 2008. This Carabao Cup semi-final first leg tie in the balance and into its closing scene, Bergvall — already on a yellow card — somehow escaped a second, despite felling Kostas Tsimikas cynically.
Within 120 sharp seconds, the 18-year-old Swede was brushing home from Dominic Solanke’s lay-off, a cultured winner on a bitterly cold night when Liverpool seemed to freeze in front of goal but Tottenham breathed new life in a cup competition that could just provide Ange Postecoglou and his players with their season lifeline.
That nightmare before Christmas, the 6-3 league defeat to Liverpool which could easily have been 10 will have been front-of-mind for all inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium ahead of their reunion. Would it be worse?. As it happens, no. It would be so very different. Courageous performances from Bergvall and Archie Gray, both 18, from Djed Spence, and from debutant goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky will have delighted their manager, while Radu Dragusin made a block on the line and Timo Werner came on and ran bravely at Liverpool.
Liverpool, meanwhile, were made to pay for Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo’s wasted chances. Postecoglou has cut such a defeated, deflated figure in recent weeks, as though not even he believes Tottenham’s extraordinary injury crisis will ever abate. It felt an age ago by the end, but the footballing gods bestowed upon him their latest cruel twist of fate when, with less than six minutes gone, Rodrigo Bentancur went down awkwardly — face-first — after stretching for an uncontested header.
