Champions League Round of 16 - 2018/19: 5 things that nobody expected to happen

#3 Tottenham smashing Dortmund to pieces

People expected a close tie between Tottenham and Borussia Dortmund - not a one-sided dismantling

The Round of 16 tie between Tottenham Hotspur and Borussia Dortmund seemed like one of the tightest ones to call in this season’s Champions League; despite their group stage struggles, Tottenham could still call upon the talents of some of Europe’s most outstanding players, while Dortmund had been leading the Bundesliga from the start, scoring 61 goals along the way, and they’d also destroyed Atletico Madrid 4-0 in their game at the Westfalenstadion.

Nobody expected this tie to be one-sided destruction, and yet that’s exactly what we got. In a phenomenal performance in the first leg at Wembley, Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs simply swept their German opponents aside, scoring 3 goals in the second half to seemingly leave the tie all but over. All without Harry Kane, too, who was out with an ankle injury suffered in January.

Dortmund knew they needed to attack in the second leg at home, and with their fans creating a volcanic atmosphere, they threw everything they had at Tottenham in the first half. Somehow though, Spurs stood firm – and then to add insult to injury, managed to find a winner through the returning Kane midway through the second half.

Nobody expected Tottenham – who made it through to the knockout stages after picking up just 1 point from their first 3 group games – to blow away Lucien Favre’s side quite like that. The result was largely lost in the shuffle of the big wins by Ajax and Manchester United in the same week, but it was still a seismic one nonetheless.