Tottenham Hotspur 3 Sporting Braga 2 (Spurs win 6-4 on agg): Berbatov leads way for cavalier Tottenham

The value of Dimitar Berbatov rises by the occasion. Last night he scored two sublime goals, and created the third, to help an otherwise haphazard Spurs into the quarter-finals of the Uefa Cup. It took his total to 19 for the season but Berbatov is much more than a tallyman. He is now his team's talisman.

Little wonder, and with growing interest from other clubs, that Spurs are considering extending and improving the contract he signed only last summer when he joined for £10.9m from Bayer Leverkusen. Such has been the 26-year-old's indelible impact.

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With a persistent groin problem, Berbatov had not been expected to play against Braga. The Spurs manager, Martin Jol, was relieved he did as his team made an unconvincing fist of disposing of their relatively modest opponents, who remained in the tie up until the final quarter, with the same score they recorded in Portugal last week. "There were two strikers we wanted," Jol said of his star signing, "[Fernando] Torres and Berbatov. And that is why we took him."

It was not just Berbatov's goals that mattered but the timing - and the quality - that shot confidence through his team-mates. Spurs are not just free-scoring right now, with 23 goals in seven games, but free-conceding as well, with 10 in the last four games.

But what Berbatov does is instil belief. No sooner had Spurs fallen behind, with Tom Huddlestone rising to glance a header, from Andrade's free-kick, beyond goalkeeper Radek Cerny for an own goal, than Berbatov struck. He even dictated the play by relaying the ball to Robbie Keane on the edge of the penalty area, running inside Luis Filipe, pointing to where he wanted the pass and then stabbing his shot across goalkeeper Paulo Santos and into the net.

If that was a fine effort, then his second, just before the interval, simply oozed class and confidence as Huddlestone chipped a free-kick which sprang the Braga defence, Berbatov ran on, chested the ball and swept it beyond Santos in one elegant movement. "He's a player who inspires confidence," said Braga's coach, Jorge Costa. "Right now he is one of the best in Europe."

Soon afterwards Pascal Chimbonda headed another free-kick wide. Spurs paid for that profligacy. Costa had rested nine players for this match but there was nothing to do with fatigue in Braga's equalising goal. A clumsy foul by Aaron Lennon set up a free-kick and although it was struck powerfully enough by Andrade it also found a hole in the defensive wall to beat Cerny.

Soon after Berbatov should have won a penalty, when he was hauled down, but, instead, moments later he played a clever one-two with Steed Malbranque for the latter to scamper into the area and guide the ball beyond Santos and guide his team into the last eight.

Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2): Cerny; Stalteri, Chimbonda, Dawson, Lee; Lennon (Ghaly, 81), Zokora, Huddlestone, Malbranque; Berbatov, Keane (Defoe, 66). Substitutes not used: Alnwick (gk), Tainio, Mido, Taarabt, Lee.

Braga (4-3-1-2): Santos; Filipe, Rodriguez (Nem, 40), Jorge, Fernandes; Madrid, Andrade, Frechaut; Pinto (Cesinha, 74); Ze Carlos (Maciel, 74), Wender. Substitutes not used: Mallo (gk), Castanheira, Chaves, Gama.

Referee: L Duhamel (France).