‘Be careful what you wish for’ is a useful expression. Because we all wish for things that may prove to be less than we’d imagined. But sometimes your wishes come true and yet lead to disappointment.

Spurs fans only ever have two wishes.

1. To finish above Arsenal (never happens)
2. To finish in the top four.

Because finishing there gives you a place in the coveted, the noble, the exclusive, the elite… Champions League. Yet getting into the Champions League isn’t really the point. Its WINNING in the Champions League that matters.

Until last season, Manchester City had twice entered the Champions League (yippee; we’re in, we’re taking our place with Euro-Royalty, yippee) and twice bummed out in the group stages, barely winning a match. At which point you’d rather be a Stoke fan whose hopes were never raised to such aspirations therefore experienced none of the tragic upset. Is it better to ‘never have loved that to love and lose’? I don’t fucking know, I’m not a poet, I’m a football fan.

In fact, I’m a Spurs fan. And we know about the capricious nature of the game more than most. We can piss away unassailable leads like no team before. We can wish for everything and get nothing, yet still keep coming back for more.

But we all remember the Champions League run the last time. Because it was brilliant. Gareth Bale at his absolute peak of unplayable-ness. Modric the Magnificent, Va-Va-Van-der-Vaart. Inter Milan at the Lane… ahhhhhhh.

That was then.

This year we started that (potentially) fabulous journey once more. With a terrible home loss (well, Wembley loss) to Monaco. At which point I started moaning. “What’s the point of a top four finish if you fuck up the group stages? Why did we lose a game we’d bossed? What is the meaning of life?” kind’a thing.

And so last night. To Moscow. No, not me, I went to Finchley to watch it at me mate’s house. But ‘we’, the team, went to Moscow, possibly the most intimidating place to play in Europe. But after an initial bout of inevitable nerves, Spurs settled down. And played proper football. Great football. Easy on the eye football. An early goal would have been easier on the heart, but such is life. But we were patient, controlled, controlling. And eventually it paid off. Come on my Son!! yelled… well, me, at the tv, when our favourite Korean scored the winning goal. I would have sung: “Oriental Harry Kane; you’re just an Oriental Harry Ka-ane…” but the words don’t fit the tune.

We’re back. On track. In the Champions League. With no worries, no regrets. And I think I’m finally learning the true meaning of life.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx