Juventus dish out harsh lesson as all Tottenham’s hard work is undone in two mindless minutes

As Spurs were reminded at Wembley, life as an elite defender is a dicey business, a row of spinning plates atop a minefield at the very edge of a clifftop precipice

Tottenham were stunned by two second-half goals (Getty)

Look right. Are you in line with Davinson? That’s fine. Look left. Are you close enough to Ben? That’s fine. Now Dybala’s dropping deep to get the ball. Do you follow him? No, that’s too deep, stay where you are. Now Douglas Costa has the ball. And at the same time, Higuain’s making the diagonal run across him. Which one do you go with? Do you step back half a yard and risk playing Higuain onside? Or do you stay where you are and take your chances with Costa’s pace?

That’s just a few seconds in the life of an elite centre-half. We occasionally talk about defending as if it’s a fairly functional, unsophisticated job: track, tackle, block, distribute. In fact, at this elevated level, with over £100m worth of prime forward dipping and swerving at you, it’s more akin to a 90-minute quickfire quiz show. Get one question wrong, and if you’re unlucky, it’s curtains.

Tottenham got their questions wrong at Wembley on Wednesday night, and they paid for it with their place in the Champions League. Two goals in three scintillating minutes put Juventus into the last eight, and if Tottenham felt hard done by after controlling so much of the tie, the four soft goals they conceded meant that ultimately, they could have few complaints.

Clearly in the days to come there is a wider discussion to be had here about Tottenham’s Champions League pedigree, their big-game temperament, their strength in depth, whether this was their best chance, possibly even their last chance, for this side to make a significant dent in the competition. All that will doubtless follow. But the aim here is to illustrate just what a dicey existence the business of top-class defending really is, a row of spinning plates atop a minefield at the very edge of a clifftop precipice.

And for all their quality over these 180 minutes, it was in their own final third that Tottenham fell short. There was their edgy, nightmarish start in Turin that saw them 2-0 down in a twinkling, followed by Higuain’s missed penalty in the same game. Then there was a strong penalty shout here against Jan Vertonghen when he brought down Costa, which so incensed the Juventus players that they chased down referee Szymon Marciniak en masse and Costa was still chipping at Vertonghen minutes later.

Finally, there were the two goals in quick succession on the night, one to Higuain and one to Dybala. The first was an accumulation of small errors: Vertonghen committed himself too high in tracking Dybala, Davies failed to prevent the cross, Sanchez was beaten to the first header and Kieran Trippier failed to make the back post safe.

The second was a simple unpicking: Higuain allowed to turn, Dybala’s run not tracked, Davies again snoozing as the brilliant young Argentinian took advantage of an offside line more crooked than a politician’s smile. None of these errors, in truth, were particularly egregious on their own, without the benefit of hindsight. Even the best sides will occasionally make them. But the margins in these games, in this sport, are fine and brutal. Tottenham learned that the hard way.

And so for those few minutes, Tottenham simply went into overload, questions piled upon questions, their decisions flustered, their judgment momentarily frozen, like the spinning colour wheel on an Apple computer. Everything good they did going forward over these two legs – the brilliance of Christian Eriksen and Mousa Dembele in Turin, the inspired round-the-keeper finish by Harry Kane to reduce Tottenham’s deficit, Son Heung-Min’s tireless, mesmerising display on the left wing here – had come to nothing.

Gonzalo Higuain celebrates Juventus’s equaliser (Getty Images)

It wasn’t just the defence’s fault, of course. Eric Dier has been in indifferent form for a few weeks now. Injuries to Toby Alderweireld and Danny Rose have taken their toll. And the burden that has fallen on Vertonghen and Sanchez in Alderweireld’s absence has perhaps taken more of a toll than we realised. His potential departure in the summer would leave a gaping scar in this Tottenham squad that it is not immediately clear how they would fill.

But moreover, this was a cruel and cursory lesson for Tottenham, in how the endeavour of 18 months – Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, all those points accumulated last season – can be thrown away in a few mindless minutes. Mauricio Pochettino can only hope that his team get another chance to learn from it.