Rio Ferdinand lost his mind over how well Hugo Lloris and Jan Vertonghen defended in Tottenham’s 1-0 win against Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday night.
Spurs progressed to the quarter-finals of the Champions League with a 4-0 aggregate win after Harry Kane scored in the second-half.
However Spurs’ result was based on their superb defensive display in the opening 45 minutes with Lloris making several great saves and Vertonghen blocking everything that came his way to keep the Dortmund attackers at bay.
Ex-Manchester United defender Ferdinand was blown away by the two senior players during the game.
“This is ridiculous,” said Ferdinand at half-time on BT Sport 2 when seeing a replay of Vertonghen’s challenge on Marco Reus [Tuesday 08:54pm]. “We thought this was a goal.”
“Vertonghen’s been immense in terms of making last-ditch tackles and Lloris, the goalkeeper today, has been phenomenal, making ridiculous saves.”
OPINION
Tottenham’s night could have turned out a lot more different if Lloris and Vertonghen did not play so well in that first-half. Dortmund were starting to run out of ideas towards half-time and after the break they were completely killed off when Kane scored. The England international won the game with that goal, but Lloris and Vertonghen won a spot in the quarter-finals with their defending. Lloris has not had the best of seasons for Tottenham, but it was the best performance of the season by him on Tuesday night. Vertonghen was the best player overall across the two legs. He was insanely good in the first-leg at Wembley while playing at left-back and continued that form in Dortmund after returning to the centre of the defence. His tackle on Reus in the first-half was the match-winning moment, the Dortmund attacker would have scored if Vertonghen didn’t get that right.