By the time we play them in February, it'll be 12 years since that game.
The biggest team we've beaten and knocked out is City because we like them.
Since then we've gone out in the group stage, been knocked out by Juve, lost to Liverpool & Gone out to RBL
Our best result in the competition in my opinion is the 3-1 win against Real in the group stages.
On our way to the final we barely made it through the group, battered Dortmund, then survied the alamo away at city and had some kind of miracle juice in the 4th quarter away to Ajax.
I would never feel confident going into a knock out tie against any of the big clubs these days. We constantly shit the bed and have done for about 4-5 years.
I don't disagree about your opinion on our Euro form these last few years.
But your post gives me the chance to challenge this narrative about how lucky we were in that run to the Champs league final.
First, Liverpool barely made it out the group, Napoli missed a sitter in the last minute that would have knocked them out.
Barcelona missed 3 'two on ones' including at 3 nil up, where Messi just tried to let Dembele I think, score, and he fluffed it.
Point is, I bet no Liverpool fans (or media where I also hear this often) put forward the narrative about how lucky they were.
We barely made it out the group but came from behind in loads of matches, don't think we led at half time in any. So resilience and 'never say die' despite carrying injuries to main players, rather than 'shitting the bed'.
We may have got one lucky bounce of the ball against either PSV or Inter at home near the end, but these balance out with flukes scored by PSV away who we dominated, Lloris getting sent off same game.
WE dominated barca away, yeah they didn't play a full first team but even if they did, they would have had nothing to play for and many first teamers would have cruised; and balanced out by the many injuries to key players we had out v barca at home.
Dortmund ( a much better Dortmund than the current one) 4 nil on agg wasn't it?
City and Ajax?
so depleted we cheered when an injured Sissoko was fit to come on as an emergency sub, didn't have Kane or Son for one of them. I didn't see a City onslaught after llorente scored, for that last 20 mins, one Lloris parry he'd expect to make, until that last minute correctly ruled offside non goal we apparently fluked. Just had an image of a hobbling Wanyama coming on at the end after we'd won, we really were down to the bare bones.
Ajax away, they had a few shots that I think lloris had covered, but nearly always forgotten that we also hit the woodwork twice in that match.
Funny how Poch is called a bottler, when Ten Hag was in charge of a 3 nil lead with 45 to play at home in a Champs league semi.
Liverpool final? Is there a narrative that Liverpool got unbelievably lucky when they fluked a decision out of nothing 20 seconds in, allowing them to hoof the ball away, being the best counter attack team in Europe so suited them down to the ground , in 30 degrees heat, against a Winks - Sissoko midfield, ended up having 3 shots on target the whole match?
It was an injury hit team, that was knackered from having the most players at the previous world cup in 2018 in the last week semis. Many of our players got less than a week off.
This had an effect towards the end of that season of injuries and being knackered.
Previous year
we got four points against Madrid who won the thing that year, unlucky to lose to Juve next round, came back from 2 down away to get a draw and had something like 28 shots at Wembley.
Beating Dortmund 4 out of 4 I think isn't bottling it either.
So yeah, like you I wouldn't trust us in a big Euro game at the moment, been awful for a few years, but your post just gave me a chance to challenge that flukey Tottenham narrative that's annoyed me for a while. That Poch team in Europe performed well, in spite of injuries and lack of reinforcements, but it's cup football and small margins.
