I honestly think they did. If you crumble at the slightest hint of pressure, you deserve to go out. Those are the high stakes of this competition. They had the beating of Spurs for the whole tie, then they concede three in one half? Mentally weak and tactically naive.
Exactly. They let Spurs win that with their sheer naivety. So many chances to wind down the clock.
We used to be like that ourselves, thankfully we're not anymore.
Indeed. If you can't see why the Spuds deserve their win you're looking at it skewed in my opinion.
They may have rode their luck at times, but so have we and like it or hate it, our common footballing trajectories have been similar in trend, at different times, and to different 'glories', during the Premier League.
Would have liked Ajax... the Dutch are boss and if you're going to beat or possibly get beaten by someone you'd want it to be Ajax out of the remaining teams. That is mostly down to the fact that Ajax have won it four times and... also having an affinity for Dutch folk.
But having Spurs in the final is great I think and I'm really looking forward to it as they played a blinder. Beating Barcelona on aggregate in the semis is a great accomplishment, but so is beating Ajax in Amsterdam on a second-leg to win 3-3 (agg.) on away goals.
The Barca win is, of course, without question, the better of the two... but if I were a spud, I'd probably have some argument for the Ajax win to be a better victory.
Whatever end, it has been the best year in European football... (all over) for like, ever for me. Seen some stonking matches this season and our successes are just the cream.
Spurs will be the cherry.