'Impossible to explain' - Lucas Moura on Champions League heroics

Lucas Moura admitted he was living his childhood dreams as he fired us into the Champions League Final in Amsterdam on Wednesday night.

Trailing 3-0 on aggregate to Ajax at half-time in the semi-final, second leg, we produced a rousing second-half response, with Lucas the man of the moment as we came back to win 3-2 on the night, drawing 3-3 overall and sensationally going through to our first-ever Final at European football’s top table on away goals.

The Brazilian forward bagged a hat-trick of well-taken strikes, the last one coming SIX minutes into added time as we made one last-ditch push to pull ourselves back from the brink.

“I don’t have words to explain this moment!” beamed Lucas as he spoke to Spurs TV after the game. “It’s very special for me, I am very, very happy and very proud of my team-mates. Of course, I need to share (this moment) with all my team-mates, my family, my friends. I always believed it was possible to come here, to win and to go to the Final. We fought – that’s what we needed to do with our intensity. The second half was amazing and everyone did really well. I need to enjoy this moment – it’s impossible to explain!”

Lucas kick-started the comeback on 55 minutes before lashing in on the turn four minutes later. The ex-PSG man revealed the group spoke at half-time about the importance of getting off the mark: “In the changing room, the gaffer said we need to score one goal. If we score one goal we are in the game and when I scored the first, it gave us a lot of motivation to keep working and to keep fighting. After the second one, that’s football, everything is possible and we needed to believe. I always say that we need to believe and I believed. If we play like this, everything is possible.”

Summing up his night, Lucas said: “The Champions League Final, it’s a dream for me. Since I was a child I dreamed of this moment and now I’ve lived this moment. It’s the best moment in my career for sure. In the last minutes, we needed to try. I was there and the ball came to me. I could shoot the ball and when I saw it was a goal, it was unbelievable, impossible to explain the feeling! Everyone deserves this moment – every player, the coach, the staff, the chairman because this club is amazing and I am so happy to be part of the Tottenham family and to give the supporters such joy. Now we can think about the Final.”