AMSTERDAM: Facing a three-goal deficit at half-time in their Champions League semi-final, Tottenham Hotspur’s players only had to think back 24 hours or so to find a source of inspiration.

“We saw Liverpool last night it goes to show it’s not over until it is over,” Tottenham full-back Danny Rose said.

In this year’s Champions League, that certainly seems to be the case. Just a day after Liverpool’s stunning win over Barcelona, Tottenham pulled off another epic comeback on Wednesday.

Lucas Moura completed a hat-trick in the sixth minute of injury time as Tottenham rallied to beat Ajax 3-2 and reach their first Champions League final, ending a remarkable run by the young Dutch team that had knocked off some of Europe’s biggest clubs along the way.

It was a rally that was eerily similar to the one the previous night at Anfield, where Liverpool erased a 3-0 deficit from the first leg by beating Barcelona 4-0 at home.

In Amsterdam, Moura nearly single-handedly helped Tottenham pull off a similar feat.

Ajax seemed to have the two-legged semi-final wrapped up by halftime after teenage captain Matthijs de Ligt’s fifth-minute header and a superb 35th minute effort by Hakim Ziyech put them 2-0 up and 3-0 on aggregate at a raucous Johan Cruyff Arena.

But Tottenham were transformed after the break as they became the eighth English club to reach the European Cup final, where they will face fellow comeback kings Liverpool in Madrid on June 1 in the first all-English final since Manchester United beat Chelsea in 2008.

With veteran Spanish striker Fernando Llorente on as a second-half substitute, Tottenham refused to lay down and when Moura scored in the 55th minute the impossible began to seem possible for the north London club.

Four minutes later he fired through a crowd to equalise on the night and put the visitors one goal from going through 3-3 on aggregate thanks to the away goals rule.

After Jan Vertonghen’s header hit the crossbar in the 87th minute, that goal finally arrived when Moura struck again deep into injury time. Dele Alli laid the ball off for the Brazilian as he streaked into the area and his low shot crept inside the right post to complete another improbable victory.

“It’s impossible to explain what I’m feeling in this moment — it’s the best moment in my life, my career,” said Moura, the player rejected by Paris St Germain as they made way for Neymar and stepped up in the ongoing absence of Tottenham’s talisman Harry Kane. “We always believed it was possible, and we gave everything on the pitch. I think we deserved this moment.”

Moura’s winner led to a pile-up of Spurs players near the corner flag celebrating one of the biggest wins in club history, as the disbelieving Ajax players lay on the ground.

“Football gives us moments we can’t imagine,” Moura, who scored the goal in Barcelona in the final group game to keep Tottenham alive in the competition, said.

Tottenham’s only other European Cup semi-final came 57 years ago when they lost to Benfica and their improbable victory left the away fans in a state of delirium and Argentine manager Mauricio Pochettino in tears at the end.

“It is one of the most important nights in my life,” Pochettino said. “The emotion is amazing, thank you to football. The most important thing is to congratulate my players. They did a great job. My players are heroes — in the last year I was telling everyone this group are heroes. They are all heroes but Lucas Moura was a superhero.”

For Ajax, it ended a run that saw a team built around young homegrown talents knock out Real Madrid and Juventus before putting themselves on the brink of the club’s first Champions League final since 1996.

But their joy turned into a nightmare as they were overwhelmed by a Tottenham side who dispensed with complicated tactics and simply threw the kitchen sink at their hosts.

“Football can be very beautiful and it can be very cruel,” said Ajax manager Erik Ten Hag, whose team will now inevitably be broken up without having the chance to grace the biggest stage in the club game.

“We have to endure the cruel side tonight but we have to go on. We were so close, we had so deserved it, but that last second. But I can’t blame anyone. We have had an incredible Champions League season and have grown a lot as a team. It is difficult to process.”

Ajax got off to a dream start as Lasse Schoene’s corner was headed in by De Ligt.

Spurs did threaten an immediate reply as a Son Heung-min cross hit the near post, but Ajax escaped and came again, a Dusan Tadic shot that fizzed just wide acting as a prelude for what was to follow in the 35th. This time Tadic cut the ball back for Ziyech, whose shot on his left foot flew into the far corner from a difficult angle, a wonderful goal that had surely clinched the tie.

Only one of the 17 teams to lose the first leg of a Champions League semi-final at home had ever come back to win.

But with Llorente on for Victor Wanyama, Tottenham went for the direct approach after the break and Ajax were rattled.

Moura started the comeback, sliding home after running on to Alli’s pass and four minutes later, after goalkeeper Andre Onana had made a remarkable save to dent Llorente, the Brazilian showed great footwork to thread a shot through a crowd.

It set up a rip-roaring finale with Tottenham pressing for the winning goal and Ajax looking to counter-attack.

Ziyech shot against the post, then Tottenham’s former Ajax defender Vertonghen headed against the crossbar with the goal gaping before Lloris’ save kept Spurs alive. Just when it looked like Ajax would hang on, Moura delivered the knockout blow.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2019