Liverpool thrashed Real Madrid 4-0 back in 2009 – but was Spurs’ Champions League destruction on Wednesday night even more impressive.
The bare statistics will suggest that Tottenham Hotspur’s thrilling 3-1 beating of Real Madrid on Wednesday night wasn’t quite in the same league as Liverpool’s famous 4-0 thrashing from back in 2009.
Liverpool scored a goal more than their London rivals and kept a clean sheet to boot in the Champions League knock out phase. The difference, however, is that the Madrid team Fernando Torres and co put to the sword at Anfield eight years ago are barely comparable to the swaggering, superstar filled squad that rocked up at Wembley this week.
“It was outstanding. Spurs completely dominated the team that has won the European Cup for the last two seasons,” former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher, who started that legendary clash back in May 2009, told Tottenham’s official website.
“We (Liverpool) beat Real Madrid in 2009, we beat them 4-0 but we didn’t play that Real Madrid. The Real Madrid we played can’t compare with a team that has won the European Cup twice on the bounce.
“They’ve dominated European football for the last two years, won La Liga last season – I think it’s one of the great nights in English football in terms of European competition.”
‘Can’t compare’
Carragher has a point. Real had not lifted the Champions League since 2001 and hadn’t reached the semi-finals in six years when they made that trip to Anfield. And it was hardly the most fearsome squad in Real’s history; Lassana Diarra, Fernando Gago, an ageing Raul and a young Gonzalo Higuain.
Tottenham, in contrast, dominated a Real side of Cristiano Ronaldo, Isco, Luka Modric and Toni Kroos – one of the greatest club sides since the turn of the century.
Carragher is right. The Real team swept aside by Liverpool has nothing on the one made to look so ordinary but Mauricio Pochettino’s sensational Spurs.
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