Ajax vs Tottenham result: Lucas Moura hat-trick sends Spurs on Champions League adventure of their lives

Tottenham are Champions League finalists. Five words that can’t possibly do justice to the maelstrom of drama and intrigue, of twists and scrapes that culminated in one of the most dramatic finishes of them all. The five minutes of injury time were up as Lucas Moura sprinted into the Ajax penalty area in pursuit of Dele Alli’s flick. The last rites had been administered. Hugo Lloris had jogged up for a corner, and jogged back. Tottenham’s quest for a first European Cup final appeared doomed to heroic failure.

But Lucas had other ideas. As the seconds leaked away, he delved deep within him, found a few last fumes of power, and surged ahead of Daley Blind to meet the ball with his left foot. The finish was low, and weak, but perfectly placed. The Ajax goalkeeper Andre Onana will relive those couple of seconds for the rest of his life. They all will. It was the moment when a brave and brilliant Ajax side, their best in a generation, saw their dreams of European glory cruelly, brutally demolished.

For Tottenham, joy unconfined, and not a few tears. Substitutes raced onto the pitch. Coaching staff raced onto the pitch. The little pocket of fans in the top corner of the stadium clutched each other as if they would never let go.

The glory will go to Lucas, whose hat-trick was one of the great Champions League semi-final performances. But the plaudits should go to all, and above all manager Mauricio Pochettino, who at half-time in this match somehow inspired one final gargantuan effort, which produced three goals and the club’s greatest night of the colour television era.

On a chilly May night in Amsterdam, Tottenham’s European dreams hung by a thread. Two-nil down at half-time, three-nil down on aggregate, they had been outrun and outgunned, another of the biggest prizes eluding their grasp just as they began to scent it. There was no thought whatsoever of a reverse to rival Liverpool’s on Tuesday night. But somehow, improbably, the Premier League’s two comeback kings will meet in Madrid on May 1.