PSG 2 Tottenham 2 (4-3 pens): Heartbreak for Spurs as furious late comeback denies them second trophy in 84 days

The Sun

5 days ago

THOMAS FRANK has already had that feeling of something Spurs.
Barely getting his feet under the table, at Tottenham, the new gaffer looked certain to get his hand on a trophy.
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Leading with goals from Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero, Tottenham were just minutes away from adding yet another trophy.
Yet Tottenham's brave resistance was broken when PSG sub Kang-in Lee pulled one back the end and deep into stoppage time, another sub, Goncalo Ramos, sent the match into a penalty shoot-out which Nuno Mendes sealed.
PSG were awful for most of the match but somehow won to add to their Champions League win over Inter Milan.
Yet this was tough on Frank and his team. Particularly Christian Romero who was literally hours into his new role as club captain and looked certain to be holding aloft a piece of silverware.
It might have 'only' been the Uefa Super Cup. It might have been against last season's Champions League winners looked as though they were still on the beach but it would still have been a night bonus to win the match.
Nevertheless, the signs were encouraging. Maybe this is the start of a sparkling new era under Frank who replaced Ange Postecoglou despite guiding the club to success in the Europa League.
Both Spurs goals were from free-kicks, something we did not see much under the stubborn Aussie manager.
Also, Tottenham were terrible at defending set-pieces under Postecoglou because they did not practice but even that looks to have changed as they held firm until the end and were punished for dropping too deeply.
Tottenham fans were already to go into work today joke and joke that they were the best team team in Europe.
But Arsenal fans, who will have been sick to death with Tottenham's gloating, will have enjoyed the moment PSG won the shoot-out in front of the noisy Tottenham fans.
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Not forgetting that PSG were not very good, this was nevertheless encouraging from Frank and his team.
Tottenham were organised rather than chaotic. They defended well and broke with intent on the counter-attack.
For Spurs, this was their sixth game of the summer while for PSG, this was their first match as they only returned to training eight days earlier.
Luis Enrique's all-singing, all-dancing team only lost the Club World Cup final against Chelsea a month ago so it would have been naive to have expected Ousmane Dembele and his mates to be bang up for this one, both physically and mentally.
When Tottenham did make mistakes, they were not punished, until right at the end. Maybe old habits die hard but at times, Spurs were too slow in their build-up and this will change under the former Brentford manager.
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There was one occasion when Richarlison berated Pedro Porro for not moving the ball quickly, instead playing the ball back to the defence.
As he admitted at his pre-match press conference, keeper Guglielmo Vicario must also become used to being more decisive with his feet to start attacks. While there was one pass which drifted out towards Frank's technical area, there was nothing wrong with the diagonal ball he launched for the opening goal.
Knowing PSG's obvious threat, Frank instructed his team to 5-3-2 when out of possession but when Spurs had the ball, it was more of a 4-3-3 with Djed Spence pushing wide left.
But when PSG had the ball - and that was quite a lot of the time - Spence was back in defence, faced with the not particularly easy job of keeping an eye on Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
PSG's sloppiness started in the opening 40 seconds when a stray pass fell to Porro but his potshot dipped over the bar of new keeper Lucas Chevalier
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But Chevalier, who is now the chosen one ahead of Gianluigi Donnarumma, was not made to work until halfway inside the first half when he tipped over a decent drive from Richarlison.
That chance came from a well-weighted pass by Mohammed Kudus and the £55m arrival from West Ham did look lively when he was given the chance and he had a shot blocked by PSG skipper Marquinhos.
In temperatures of 27C, even though it was nearly 9.30pm local time, both sets of players had a drinks break and Tottenham's fans, encouraged by what they had seen, gave their team a huge cheer.
But that was nothing to the roar when centre-back Van De Ven tucked away the rebound after Chevalier tipped Joao Palhinha's close range shot against the woodwork.
The chance came after PSG failed to clear a long free-kick by Vicario and Romero rose masterfully to head the ball into the area.
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Shortly into the second half, Spurs scored again and PSG fans wished they still had Donnarumma in goal.
Romero was left unmarked to connect to Porro's free-kick and Chevalier helped the shot into the net.
In contrast, in a spell of intense PSG pressure, Vicario pulled off a cracking save from Desire Doue and while Bradley Barcola stuck the ball in the net but was offside.
Yet after Enrique made his subs, Lee drilled into the corner from outside the area to pull one back.
And then Dembele crossed for Ramos to get the ball over the line when Spurs were just a couple of minutes away from victory.
The shoot-out looked promising when Vitinha delivered s terrible spot-kick and missed the target but goal hero Van de Ven had his save and Mathys Tel did a little stutter and then struck the ball wide to his left post.