Biggest prize for a real football man

RICHARD WILLIAMSon the long and colourful journey that has led Harry Redknapp to the last eight

FOR HARRY Redknapp there have been many big occasions in football but none, for a real football man, bigger than last night. Milan, seven times winners of the European Cup, under the lights at history-soaked White Hart Lane, confronted by the white shirts of the descendants of Blanchflower, Smith and Jones. A match with Brazilian artists, Dutch magicians, a Croatian wizard, stalwart Englishmen. A roaring crowd and a finely balanced tie. With, somewhere in the distance, the prospect of a final in North London.

Last season, his 27th in football management, was the year the world finally took Redknapp seriously. He started it as ‘Arry, the game’s Arthur Daley, noted for wheeling and dealing, sometimes to bizarre effect, and occasionally leading unfancied sides to improbable and evanescent success. He ended it as England’s most plausible candidate to succeed Fabio Capello after Euro 2012 - in pure footballing terms, at least.

The most English of managers first came to attention in the late 1960s as a touchline-hugging winger, succeeding Peter Brabrook in the West Ham team of Bobby Moore, Billy Bonds and Clyde Best. That was about as good as his playing career got but there have been many compensations during his time in the manager’s tracksuit.

There was the day in 1977 when, as the player-coach of Seattle Sounders, he confronted the New York Cosmos, Pele and all, in the Soccer Bowl final in the Giants stadium, losing 2-0. Or the FA Cup third-round tie in January 1984, during his first season as a manager in England, when his Bournemouth, of the old Third Division, eliminated Manchester United.

Or the afternoon in 1989 when he gave his 16-year-old son, Jamie, his professional debut at Bournemouth. Or the rendezvous at Wembley three years ago when his Portsmouth side, running on fresh air and noxious promises, beat Cardiff City to win the FA Cup, having disposed of Manchester United on the way.

Until last night, however, probably none of them surpassed the day last May when he knew he had led his Tottenham Hotspur, the club with which he had begun his playing career as a schoolboy, to a fourth-place finish in the Premier League and a place in the European Cup for the first time in half a century.

Redknapp was already on Spurs’s books as a 14-year-old schoolboy when Bill Nicholson’s team failed by the narrowest of margins to overcome Benfica’s 3-1 lead after the first leg of the semi-final in Lisbon in April 1962. Last night he was attempting to take their successors through to the last eight for the first time since those long-ago glory days, taking a 1-0 advantage over Milan from the first leg at San Siro.

He made only one tweak last night, restoring Luka Modric to midfield in place of Wilson Palacios, whose partnership with Sandro had been the rock on which victory in the first match had been built. Massimiliano Allegri, Redknapp’s opposite number, was able to make his own significant switch, moving Thiago Silva to his proper position alongside Alessandro Nesta at the centre of the defence, while giving the quicksilver Pato, restored to fitness and form, a starting place.

As Redknapp must have suspected they would, Milan were faster out of the traps and more alert all round than they had been when going down to that unexpected defeat on home turf. Throughout the first half Michael Dawson and William Gallas were kept at full stretch to counter the angled runs of Pato, the unpredictable darts of Robinho and the hard-to-track wanderings of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Against this barrage, in a first period of ceaseless movement and clattering energy, Spurs could point to little more than Rafael van der Vaart’s bar-skimming 30-yard free-kick. The threat of Peter Crouch was always apparent but the chance to capitalise on Italian defensive uncertainty went begging a minute after the resumption, when Aaron Lennon flighted over a cross from the right, only for Crouch, under no pressure, to head it harmlessly across the goalmouth.

This was the tactic that looked most likely to bring the security of another goal. Crouch was certainly doing his bit in accepting the kicks and nudges. For Redknapp, the problem was to get a midfield player – Van der Vaart, Modric or Pienaar – close enough to profit from the knock-downs that were, to be honest about it, their only coherent tactic.

“I enjoyed the occasion but I couldn’t say I enjoyed the 90 minutes,” said Redknapp when it was all over. He admitted the thought of facing Barcelona, possible quarter-final opponents after they beat Arsenal, was a daunting one.

“I thought last night (Tuesday) was one of the finest performances I’ve ever seen,” he said. “They were amazing. They made a side like Arsenal, who play in our league every week and pass teams to death, they made them almost look out of their depth.”

GuardianService