As the saying goes, heroes come in all shapes and forms. They don’t have to wear capes.
We know that for a fact.
We now know they come in the form of nerveless, teenage Irishmen who love the FA Cup and in lanky Germans who have not had much of a look in but who are deadly from 12 yards.
They also come in the form of young lads from Dereham with floppy hair, unafraid to ‘sshhh’ 49,000 hostiles, in young Yorkshiremen with hearts of lions who can contort their bodies to make the most heroic of goalline blocks and in tall, imposing Dutchmen with plastic bottles adorned with names and letters and who don’t give a 5hit.
And, of course, in the form of 9,000 voices who cheered and roared and sang as if their own lives depended upon it.
Put all of those things together and you get one of those nights that Daniel Farke speaks of, where memories are created. Not one of those 9,000, nor any of those watching and listening from the comfort of a living room or bar will ever forget the evening of March 4, 2020. None.
Naturally, those not fortunate enough to form part of the Canary Nation will sneer and attempt to pour cold water on the achievement. But these strawberries are not about to be pi55ed on. Not this time.
Jonathan Walters can whinge until he’s blue in the face about Tim Krul gaining a yard on each Spurs penalty taker. Even our Dion cut a morose, half-glass-empty figure, preferring instead to concentrate on the woes of impending relegation. And many Spurs fans have taken to social media over nasty ol’ Tim daring to have a word with their fragile heroes as they nervously approached the penalty spot from It.
But who cares. Who gives a hoot.
Yes, it’s been a difficult season, as the BBC commentary team reminded us constantly, but out of that difficult season, Team Farke has again managed to conjure up something special. Even if it does come to an end before a trip to Wembley, they’ve still given us those moments of exhilaration that football fans live for.
Whether those 120 gruelling, energy-sapping minutes will impact on the hearts and minds ahead of Bramall Lane, will only be revealed on Saturday, but, for now, we should unashamedly wallow in one of those nights on which we’ll dine out for years.
Ironically, you could argue this was City’s least convincing performance of the Spurs trilogy, with that central midfield not functioning anything like the way Team Farke wanted it to.
In the engine room, Tom Trybull and Mario Vrancic cut frustrated figures, both short of the match sharpness that only comes with playing regularly. As a result, neither were able to exert any sort of control on what was a frenetic cup tie.
There were also uncomfortable echoes of the hot-knife-through-butter syndrome that’s been present in too many away games this season, especially in the first half of normal time, and we’ll all be left wondering what the outcome would have been if Spurs had released the handbrake for the full 90 rather than the final ten of the 90.
But hey, not our problem.
So many good performances. So much to make us proud.
Spurs will naturally point to having no Kane or Son, but will conveniently forget that Farke too made changes to his starting XI. No Pukki, no Duda, no Tettey, no McLean, all of whom started against Leicester and who will feature in Sheffield.
That one of the replacements scored the vital equalising goal should not be lost amidst the penalty maelstrom, and while Josip Drmic may not possess the class and movement of Teemu Pukki, he’s now scored two in two in this competition and falls in the ‘has a goal in him’ category.
While it will go down as a Michel Vorm error that led to Drmic joyously bundling that ball in, in front of the 9,000, the Swiss international was there, in the right place, after McLean’s stinging drive was spilled by the second-best Dutch keeper on the pitch.
What followed was not good for the ticker, but the heroics kept on coming, with Ben Godfrey’s goal-line clearance from Serge Aurier’s shot worthy of the highest of accolades all on its own. Like I said, who needs a cape?
Extra-time was typically tense but those in yellow and green resembled the walking wounded with added cramp and fatigue. Yet still, they refused to buckle. Tettey and McLean had already added ballast when it was most needed – Farke got the timing right – and to have been hit by a sucker punch late on would have been cruel.
Instead, the Krul-ty was saved for those in white, with our favourite Dutchman’s mere presence giving City the edge before a ball had even been kicked.
Farke spoke afterwards of his confidence in his goalkeeper and penalty takers, and it’s clear the pre-penalty huddle was far removed from a ‘you’ve done very well to get this far; give it your best’. He demanded victory and trusted his players implicitly to deliver.
Tim Krul’s plastic drinks bottle will eventually find a place in the Castle Museum, but it was accompanied by a swagger, and the type of mind control normally associated with Derren Brown.
By the time Troy Parrot and Gedson Fernandes went up to take their spot-kicks, the goal must have appeared eight feet rather than eight yards wide.
Tim did the rest.
So, one of the great days. One of those ‘memories’. And with the oddity of a home tie to come. Who knew they even existed?
Let’s not worry about Bramall lane until Saturday. Instead, let’s revel in being in the FA Cup last eight for the first time since 1992.
Feels good, right?
C’MON!
Hi Gary
It was a good game to watch and as I have mentioned before Spurs are my second team and maybe a few other city supporters as well.
My whatsapp was going mad last night from my 3 spurs supporting sons all cursing the linesman not getting penalties retaken with Krul’s blatant disregard for the rules I told them he watches the penalty being taken and saved with the same theatrics thst Stallone does in Escape from Victory lol
A great preformance all round.
The night ended on a sour note with Spurs supporters abusing Eric Diers much younger brother and now he can be in trouble for going to help him, yes it was a silly thing todo but who seeming a family member or friend hasn’t tried to intervene, will the FA punish him possibly, should they no, find and ban the supporter, not sure on that, possibly send him to anger management but is it anger or passion.
We will not know what started it off but some how these incidents needs to stop
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
I thought one of the highlights was the performance of Adam Idah. He has clearly learned from Teemu as he chased back to defend when required and what a cool head when slotting his penalty. Vrancic and Trybull’s lack of sharpness highlights the need to have a rotation policy in place. Now to blunt the blades.
Hi Alex.
Yeah I woke up to a burgeoning inbox this morning too – more on that later.
I’m hoping for a Derby win tonight but equally we owe Man U one.
At least I’ll be able to go, either way. If it is Man U those tickets will be gold dust.
My whatsapp went into overdrive from my sons rereading them is funny now
I have a shiver down my spine just reading this and can’t offer anything extra to say about the performance. I just want to jump on the joyful band wagon.
My favourite tweet from last night was one thanking Todd Cantwell for not taking a ‘ Panenka’ penalty. I was sure he would!
I was one of the 9000 and, wow, what a night!
It really was one of those nights to feel absolutely so proud of our club. Not just the players, who were immense, but the supporters. Yes, I know it’s one of the easier ones to get to but it was a Wednesday night and we’re bottom of the League. You would NEVER have known that from last night. There were a couple around me complaining of football “tourists” but even that couldn’t take anything away.
Can’t really single out individuals, they all put a shift in, even though many were running on empty at the end.
And it really is a magnificent football stadium. I just hope Max didn’t like playing there too much!
Wel said Gary.
For all their fatigue and cramp, they all managed a 100 metres time good enough to win the next Olympics to get to the Green and Yellow Army after King Krul’s final save. He is a real master of the mind games, should get an Olympic medal just for that.
As one poster on another site has said, Tim needed to be of his line to save the last one, because it was so weak it wouldn’t have reached him otherwise.
The Everton game will now get moved because we’ll be taking on either the team formerly known as FLDC or Manure.
OTBC
Really good game, and a fantastic result. I’m so pleased we went for it and didn’t pick the likes of McGovern and Leitner. Ironically, were we only a point or two off, or even above, safety I suspect we’d have been more likely to take the game lightly.
Whilst Krul inevitably takes the headlines I thought, based on the 120 minutes, Ben Godfrey was our MotM. His reading of the game generally was excellent, and the anticipation to make that goal-line clearance reminded me of one Russell Martin made with an overhead kick.
Great bit of management to give Idah some game time in a pressure match. I also liked that given his penalty at PNE was probably the only one any Spurs analyst would have been able to research, he went for something totally different this time.
With Arsenal, Chelsea, Man C and probably Man U all away the QFs look very nicely set up.
Really good read Gary, because of my health issues I only watched until half time then recorded the rest.
When I got up this morning I was struggling to resist the temptation to check the result and I failed miserably!
Having said that, I watched it all and enjoyed every nano second, I find it hard to believe now how many “supporters” were calling for Krul and Cantwell to be got rid of, arguably our best two players now.
Thanks Gary for a really enjoyable read!
Its a funny old thing football, how do you measure success for example ? Take Norwich City, at the end of the season they will be roundly applauded, not only by their own fans but by fans from all over and pundits alike and that no matter what the final position turns out to be.
Contrast that to the fortunes of Tottenham Hotspur: Their fans are constantly teased on social media for their team being so ‘Spursy’, an adjective that a eludes to a team that promises so much yet delivers so little, they last won the FA cup in 1991, the league cup in 2008, UEFA cup 1984 and the league in 1961 [according to wiki]. Christian Eriksen got fed up, Harry is considering joining Man United, Ndombele cost £55m and has played in 17 games out of 42 this season, they pay Mourinho around £13m and he’s under contact till the end of the 2023 season and a chief exec who is none too popular and if that wasn’t enough they have players who think it’s ok to run amok in the stands.
Listen, I’m not too fond of Delia, she’s a bit like my blocked sink downstairs but I’d sooner put up with her than be a Spurs fan.
Some people say the grass is greener on the other side but I’m with Randy Newman on this, boy ‘It’s lonely at the top’
Thanks Gary and thanks to the other 8,999 who turned up in N17 and went home with sore larynxses. I’m off to watch the replay on BBC I player, all 231 minutes of it.
Bloody marvellous evening!! I thought the whole of the back 5 were tremendous, especially Ben. In extra time it seemed he Max, Jamal and Grant were all either knackered, crocked or both. I fear it’ll be a different back 4 on Saturday. Why are we so ‘open’ though. In the first half Spurs were walking through our midfield at will. Anyway, bring on Utd!
Great that we won, and also that we went in with a strong team, including Krul-cially our best keeper. Kudos also to the BBC for getting some live coverage organised after it originally looked like the TV schedulers had overlooked the tie of the round. For a brief while at least, we can enjoy being only three wins from Europe.