Ajax 2-3 Tottenham (Agg 3-3)

There has never been a silence like this. Not the one that enveloped the Amsterdam Arena five minutes and fifteen seconds into injury time.

If you didn’t know better, you would say these narratives were fixed, or scripted. That these Champions League semifinals had a team of writers, like Game of Thrones, or were choreographed, slam by slam, like WWE.

But not pen produce this. The return from the dead, the swing of the boot when all at last seemed lost. Lucas Moura’s hat-trick, virtually the last kick of the match, was the most incredible Champions League moment since – er, Tuesday night.

It brought even his manager Mauricio Pochettino onto the pitch, all composure surrendered. The injury Harry Kane, too. For a man with damaged ankle ligaments, it was quite the sprint. Meanwhile, a brilliant young Ajax team sunk to tearful collapse.

There will be an all-English Champions League final, between two teams that somehow came back from the brink. Liverpool, 3-0 down from the first leg; Tottenham, 3-0 down from second-leg half-time. It would make more sense, really, if there was a Champions League writers room.

How else can we explain another night of such exquisite drama, a Tottenham side that looked to have expired yet again, in Europe, and then rose in the second-half to take this tie. Jon Snow’s resurrection had nothing on this. It truly was a tale of fire and ice.

Tottenham came back into this game in 204 seconds when Lucas Moura scored twice. They won it, five minutes into injury time, when he scored again. In those slivers of time Ajax, so composed and impressive in the first-half, finally looked their tender age.

If anything, to see Tottenham still battling as the seconds ticked by was marginally more surprising than Liverpool’s revival against Barcelona. Liverpool were brilliant from the start, on Tuesday. Tottenham weren’t. Ajax deserved their two first-half goals and there three-goal advantage across the tie. Tottenham looked ordinary.