Capital One Cup: Friedel ends Tottenham’s 19 years of penalty woe
AT WHITE HART LANE
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 2 v HULL CITY 2
AET, Tottenham win 8-7 on penalties
TOTTENHAM manager Andre Villas-Boas revealed some of his penalty heroes had not taken a spot kick for four months before last night’s thrilling win ended his team’s 19-year run of misery in shoot-outs.
Goalkeeper Brad Friedel, who scored an own goal in normal time, went from villain to hero with saves from Aaron McClean and Ahmed Elmohamady to send Spurs through to a home quarter-final clash with London rivals West Ham. And Villas-Boas conceded a lack of penalty practice made for an unpredictable finale.
“We didn’t practice penalties for the last three or four months,” said Villas-Boas, the first Tottenham manager to oversee a penalty shoot-out win since January 1994.
“We’ve seen some brilliant penalties. That is the nature of football, how unpredictable it is. If you want to see predictable endings go to see the opera or to the theatre, that always finishes well. In football we don’t always know what is going to happen.”
Villas-Boas, critical of the negative atmosphere inside White Hart Lane against the same opposition four days ago, made seven changes to his side.
The manager praised the supporters for being notably more vocal and they were off their seats on 16 minutes when Gylfi Sigurdsson spun past defender Curtis Davies and lashed in an unstoppable shot from 25 yards.
But Hull levelled on 53 minutes when Elmohamady slid a pass across the box, Davies knocked it back across goal and the loose ball hit the knees of Friedel and crept over the line.
Hull’s Paul McShane rose above Vlad Chiriches to head in a corner in extra time, but substitute Harry Kane levelled from 16 yards to set up spot-kicks and Spurs, despite record signing Erik Lamela missing, prevailed.
QUARTER-FINAL DRAW
Leicester v Manchester City
Stoke v Manchester United
Sunderland/Southampton v Chelsea
Tottenham v West Ham
Ties to be played 17 and 18 December