Tottenham midfielder Harry Winks has said that “sheer hard work” is one of the reasons why the club has the chance to lift their first-ever Champions League trophy this season, and claimed mounting a comeback in the group after getting one point from the first three games has made the run extra special. .
Spurs battled through a group containing Barcelona, PSV and Inter Milan, before cruising past Borussia Dortmund 4-0 on aggregate in the last 16.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side pulled off a remarkable run to the final from there onward, however, getting past Manchester City and Ajax on away goals – progressing through the latter thanks to a second-half Lucas Moura hat-trick.
England international Winks – whose last contribution to the Champions League run before suffering injury was the first leg against City – reflected on the club’s European campaign as “amazing”.
“It’s been amazing, especially those first few games where we turned it around,”the 23-year-old told Spurs’ official website. “We’d been written off, one point in three games, we were basically told ‘you can’t qualify from there’ but as a squad, we never gave up, we didn’t quit.
“We had a bit of luck along the way – PSV drawing with Inter in the final group games – but we still had to get a result at the Nou Camp that night and played really well.
“That’s made this run even more special, the fact that we’ve come from so much adversity, come from behind in games and yet we’ve got to the final through sheer hard work, belief, quality of course and determination.”
OPINION
It really has been a quite remarkable Champions League run. Pochettino’s side looked down and out after three games in Group B. They lost 2-1 to Inter and 4-2 to Barcelona at Wembley before drawing 2-2 with PSV. They had one point from those three games – not near enough the average needed at that stage to get a side through. But Spurs then went on to collect seven points from a possible nine, including a draw away to Barca, and that got them through. The North London club could never had predicted what was to come, though. Beating Borussia Dortmund looked easy enough but the away-goal victories against City and Ajax were just incredible. To come back from three goals down and to have one player to do it with a hat-trick in a Champions League semi-final is remarkable and they fully deserve to be in the final alongside Liverpool. Whatever happens in the final, the Spurs players can hold their heads high after a fantastic European journey.