Last night was a big night for football and for one club in particular. Tottenham Hostspur, the new kids on the European scene after qualifying for the Champions League for the first time, faced Inter Milan, the European Champions at White Heart Lane. The game promised to be a memorable one after the two teams met a fortnight earlier in Italy in a 7 goal thriller, where Inter went 4-0 ahead in the first half and got the Spurs keeper sent off in the first 10 minutes. Yet despite being a man down Tottenham crawled their way back to eventually lose 4-3 after a simply sublime performance from 21 year old Gareth Bale who scored all 3 goals against the reigning champions. Surely this was the best loss Tottenham had ever had?

Gareth Bale Outclasses Inter

But all was far from lost as Tottenham hosted Inter Milan at White Heart Lane in what was possibly one of the biggest games ever to take place in their historic stadium. The place was electric. You could feel the hope and belief of thousands of the fans that European new comers could achieve the unthinkable and topple the current champions. All could see from the first whistle that the team believed it too. Where most teams in the Champions League play overly cautious football, especially against such fierce rivals as Inter, Spurs went out all guns blazing.

As a lifelong Spurs fan, it was just a joy to see them play such a high profile club. But to see them play so skilfully, so tidily, and so attractively was simply an amazing feeling. Tottenham quite simply outclassed Inter Milan in every part of the pitch for the entire game. They bring a unique playing style to the tournament of attractive attacking football that perhaps has not been seen for quite some time. They took risks, and boy did they pay off. Every single player in the team played exceptional football. Spurs fans know they are capable of playing this well, but we don’t always see it. This was not only the best Spurs performance I as a fan have ever seen, but it was one of the best most flawless performances of any team I have ever seen.

To top it off, Gareth Bale not only managed to match his unbelievable performance in the last encounter but exceed it, providing one of the all time best performances in Tottenham’s great history. Bale, playing in his first ever European championship, made a complete mug of the widely proclaimed best right back in the world Maicon. He made 2 of the best assists you will ever see to set up Peter Crouch and Pavlyuchenko’s goals making the Inter right back look like a school boy in comparison.

The fans were electric and elated and truly were the 12th man. You could hear them chanting “Taxi for Maicon” as Bale continued to outplay what is arguably the best back 4 in the game. You could cut the tension with a knife when Eto clawed one back to make it 2-1 at the 80 minute mark. Spurs fans have seen amazing performances been taken away from us many times before, but not this time. With a simply astonishing run down the left wing by Gareth Bale to set up Pavlyuchenko to ensure Tottenham got perhaps their best win of this century, if not of all time. All this with a team that is lacking some of our biggest players to injury.

As Spurs fans we can olny hope we can carry momentum from this win back into the Premier League and continued in Europe to hopefully make it through to the next round at the top of our group. But we also can only hope that Gareth Bale stays with us during the next transfer window. He has no doubt attracted the worlds top teams as a wise investment and put his name up for the young player of the year. It’s not like Tottenham really need the money. Redknapp claimed in the post match conference the the clubs owners had good wealth management in place and were not in need of selling any players. I am actually quietly confident that we will stay because of the man that he is. He is only 21 and very quiet and shy. He doesn’t drink and when Redknapp gave him 4 days off last week after working so hard, he went and stayed with his mother in Cardiff.

Bale Crouch & Van Der Vaart in Training

Bale is not like a lot of footballers out there. Bale is an athlete. Rooney is just a footballer. John Terry is just a footballer. Ashley Cole is just a footballer. These people are just as engrossed with the lifestyle off the pitch as they are with their time on it. Bale is different. He is 100% football and look at where it has got him. We can only hope that he does not get corrupted by the huge sums of money he is likely to see waved at him in the coming months. Stay at Tottenham Gareth! It really is the best thing for you.