Moussa Sissoko, Tottenham’s happy accident, saves the day against Ajax

Ajax beat Tottenham in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal, but Moussa Sissoko helped ensure the tie is still alive.

Mauricio Pochettino and Erik ten Hag spent the buildup to the first leg of their side’s Champions League semifinal on Tuesday, a 1-0 win for Ajax, arguing over who had it worse. Pochettino claimed it was “unfair” the Dutch side had a whole week off before the match, to which ten Hag responded, persuasively, “We play in the Eredivisie where we get 10 million Euros from TV. They play in the Premier League where they get 200 million. So you tell me what’s fair?”

If that seems like unusual pre-match chatter for two coaches who were three games away from winning Europe’s most prestigious trophy, it’s because it was. But that has been the story of this tie from the moment Tottenham completed their remarkable quarterfinal win against Manchester City two weeks ago. Teams like these don’t make it to the Champions League semifinals these days. If they do, they certainly don’t play other teams they can reasonably expect to beat.

There can be benefits to being the underdog, of course, a sense of freedom where bigger teams are constrained by expectation. Then again, most managers would presumably just take the better players. For the first half-hour on Tuesday, Ajax appeared to benefit from both. They dominated the ball, created the better chances, forced Spurs into sloppy touch after sloppy touch after sloppy touch. Donny van de Beek’s 15th minute goal was well deserved.

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The turning point in the match, however, followed the arrival of arguably the game’s greatest individual underdog, Moussa Sissoko, who started on the bench after recently returning from injury, and came on as a substitute only when Jan Vertonghen was forced off in the 38th minute with a head injury (an ugly incident that raised yet more serious questions about the sport’s concussion protocol).

Tottenham had changed their shape before Sissoko came on, moving from a back three to a back four, but it wasn’t until the Frenchman’s introduction into central midfield (combined, presumably, with whatever Pochettino said at halftime) that the home side began to look at least minimally dangerous. Spurs were outshot 6-2 before he came off the bench, and outshot Ajax 7-4 afterward. They weren’t dominant at any point, but Sissoko changed the game.

That is a remarkable thing to say about a player who has spent so long being a punchline, an overpriced, deadline-day acquisition by a team who have since become notorious for their unwillingness to spend any money. It’s taken six months of solid performances in central midfield for many people to even consider the possibility Sissoko is actually valuable, that this isn’t just a prolonged, happy accident.

Tottenham’s 2018-19 — from the transfer-less summer window, to the World Cup hangover, to the stadium delay, to the (very) short-lived title race, to the many, many injury crises, to the quarterfinal upset against City — has felt, above all, exhausting. No single moment has seemed easy. But they’re still alive in their first Champions League semifinal for almost 60 years, and they have Sissoko, in large part, to thank. That might not make any sense, but it feels appropriate.