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It was a highly entertaining evening at the Camp Nou, and both teams came away with a point apiece in the final game from Group B. The result sees Tottenham become the second team tonight after Liverpool to successfully manage safe passage to the next round of the Champions League, making it a great night for English football, and a sad one for Italians. Napoli and Inter Milan will continue their European Campaign in the next round of the Europa League.
Spurs were equal on Inter with points and goal difference, making qualification a real task, despite being second in the group. Both the teams came into the game on the back of a victory, with Barcelona demolishing Espanyol 0-4, and Tottenham dispatching Leicester City 2-0.
Ernesto Valverde made 7 changes from the team that won the derby, with stars like Messi, Pique, Busquets, and Ter Stegen left on the bench. Youngsters Munir, Alena, and Miranda were given starts, given that Barca had already topped the group and already qualified, irrespective of tonight's result.
Tottenham also made 4 changes from their routine victory, with Kane, Eriksen, Alli resuming their starting roles. Kyle Walker-Peters was given a rare start, due to groin injuries to both Kieran Trippier and Serge Aurier.
The youngster was at fault for Barca's first goal, which came through the boot of Ousmane Dembele. The former Dortmund player ran past the right back far too easily, cut in from a diving challenge, and slotted the ball past Lloris like it were a video-game.
Barcelona kept up their pressure on Tottenham's defense, particularly the right side through Coutinho, who struck the post twice tonight in each half.
Tottenham also created their fair share of chances but was unable to finish them off. Son missed the best opportunity to level the game for Spurs, being clean through on goal but fluffing his shot.
Barcelona brought on Busquets in place of Rakitic to get more control in the middle of the park, but Tottenham was more than inspired by the team talk at the break, fashioning themselves some really good chances, looking by far the better side for the entirety of the second period. They were only held back by poor finishing, as Barcelona left huge gaps for Eriksen, Son, Alli, and Kane to utilize, which they really did, pushing the home side on the back foot.
Tottenham brought on Lamela for Walker and Lucas for Son, and both men sparked the game into another gear, with Tottenham creating chance after chance that was either fluffed or saved by Cillisen.
Tottenham had so much of the ball in the second half, that the final possession stats showed that they had 52% of the ball in the entirety of the game at the Camp Nou against Barcelona, which is really impressive when you think about it.
Here are 3 Reasons why Barcelona didn't lose.
#1 Lackadaisical finishing from the visitors
Mauricio Pocchetino will be absolutely fuming at his side for not getting a result against a weakened Barcelona and the attackers will be taking the brunt of it, as Son, Lucas, Kane, Alli, and basically the entire team were great at 9/10th of creating an attack, just failing to take advantage of their own brilliance.
The Argentine coach will make sure that his players remember their mistakes from tonight, and try their best not to repeat them by trying to finish off moves more naturally as they did for the goal at the 85th minute.
#2 Missing key starters
Both teams were missing key players, with Tottenham having had a terrible case of the injury bug. Davinson Sanchez, Kieran Trippier, Serge Aurier, Moussa Dembele and Victor Wanyama are all on the treatment table and barring Wanyama and one of Aurier or Trippier, all others would have definitely started.
Barca missed Umtiti and Roberto through injuries but chose to rest several key starters as well. Messi and Busquets came into the game in the second half as Valverde tried to outmaneuver Pocchetino, but failed to make a telling impact on the match.
Pique and Ter Stegen were also rested, which gave Thomas Vermaelen and Clement Lenglet a test of a lifetime in trying to stop a red-hot Tottenham strike force.
Lenglet shone tonight against Kane & Co., winning 6 tackles and 11 duels on the night in front of the Camp Nou. These were the kinds of performances expected from him when Barcelona brought him over from Sevilla in the summer.
#3 Luck
Coutinho was one of the best attacking players not wearing white tonight at the Camp Nou, cutting in from his usual left-hand side role, wiggling into room and also finding team-mates with his sublime passing ability.
He was a huge headache for Walker-Peters, and Pocchetino eventually had to shift Moussa Sissoko to the right-back slot to deal with the Brazilian better. Despite that and Messi coming on, he still looked Barcelona's most threatening attacking player tonight, and was unfortunate not to get on the scoresheet, having two shots come hit the woodwork of Hugo Lloris.
Whereas in some areas they faced bad luck, in some areas they were extremely fortunate, as Son and Kane weren't at their punishing best, allowing Barcelona and their defense to regroup by making a bad pass or holding on to the ball too long on occasions.
Barcelona was really exposed in the second half, and Tottenham's coach would certainly feel his team should have exploited those deficiencies and came away with all three points instead of settling for just one.
