BEVERLY HILLS, February 11, (THEWILL) – For the second time in English football this month, there was a nine-goal thriller that was as different from the Tuesday, 2nd February 9-0 mauling Southampton suffered at Old Trafford in as every way.
The FA Cup fifth-round match between Premier League sides Everton and Tottenham Hotspur gave football fans of all stripes an incredible game with edge-of-the-seat entertainment that needs to be watched again to relish in full.
With the only possible similarity between yesterday’s match and the 9-0 game on Tuesday being that the hosts won, everything else was a glut of variety. For starters, it was not as lopsided because both teams scored with Everton and Spurs ending regulation time tied at 4-4. And, because unlike the league United-Southampton tie, the FA Cup fixture had to go to extra time to determine a winner, there was still one goal at the end.
It so happened that Bernard Duarte of Everton was the one who struck that extra-time winner as Nigeria’s Alex Iwobi’s side sensationally beat Tottenham 5-4 after extra time to reach the FA Cup quarter-finals in this a rip-roaring tie at their home grounds.
Duarte’s 70th-minute introduction for Iwobi by Carlo Ancelotti turned out to be the clincher with the crucial impact he played through his 97th-minute volley. It would have been a world of hurt for Everton who were 3-1 up in the 43rd minute of the thrilling contest had they lost because they allowed Tottenham take it to 3-3 and force extra time with the equaliser of another substitute, the Spurs superstar Harry Kane.
The going ahead of one side, the equaliser of the other and the pulling ahead again of the side that just equaliser proved to be a classic rollercoaster affair. The hosts were decidedly sluggish at kickoff but as they grew into the tie, they became more clinical. An eight-minute blistering blitzkrieg led to three Everton goals that stunned the visitors. But Jose Mourinho’s side were able to peg one back to go into the interval 3-2 and behind by one goal.
The goal-fest did not let up after the break, keeping the cyclic nature of the goal advantage spinning. Spurs equalised through Davinson Sanchez, Everton restored their lead through Sigurdsson’s goal and it was perhaps no surprise that it was the Lilywhites’ talisman, Kane, who headed in Son Heung-Min’s wonderful cross to force the extra time.
As usual Kane’s goal did what Kane’s goals often do: make the entire Tottenham team more lively. They looked most likely to score next and pushed ahead with renewed vigour. It was not to be. Rather, it was the hosts that again came up with the goal that mattered with Duarte making the difference.
It was an absolute enjoyable game of football, especially for Everton fans and neutral watchers of the game and it had everything that makes football lively. A pot of goals, heroic goal scorers, all the errors that could be made, the super subs that came in and found the net, injury-forced changes and extra time to boot.
It was also one of those matches for the record books providing statistics that mark it out as special. It was the highest-scoring FA Cup game between two Premier League sides since February 1961, when Sheffield Wednesday beat Manchester United 7-2. Losing 5-4 made it the first time a Mourinho-coached team will both concede and score at least four goals in a single game, and it came in his 981st match.
For the first time since his Chelsea side lost 5-3 to Spurs in January 2015, when Mauricio Pochettino held sway at the club he now managers, Mourinho has had his team breached five times. Ancelotti’s tactics worked and the Toffees can hope that Everton’s first major trophy since 1995 is within reach, if they can keep up this level of performance.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
