Advantage Ajax as Tottenham are beaten in 1st leg of Champions League semi
A weakened Tottenham side suffered a 1-0 home defeat to Ajax in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final on Tuesday night.
With Harry Kane and Son Heung-min injured and suspended respectively Fernando Llorente started in attack.
Ajax were at full strength and able to pick their top stars, including Frenkie dee Jong and Matthijs de Ligt.
Read how all the action unfolded at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium via our Live Centre.
Tottenham went a goal behind after 15 minutes when Donny Van de Beek found himself behind the home defence with just Hugo Lloris to beat.
The midfielder steadied himself before shooting low to Lloris’ right to open the scoring for the visitors.
Lloris was forced to block with his legs from the same player as Ajax threatened again before Spurs fashioned their first opening of the match.
Kieran Trippier’s free-kick reached Llorente but the forward’s header was well off target as the half hour approached.
Vertonghen then required lengthy treatment after clashing heads with team-mate Toby Alderweireld as both competed for a Trippier free-kick into the Ajax area.
Vertonghen tried to return to the field of play but quickly indicated he needed to be replaced with Sissoko coming on in his place.
With three minutes of added time played Trippier floated in another free-kick but Alderweireld headed just over the bar before Sissoko fired off target from distance as Spurs went into the break 1-0 down.
Dele Alli had Tottenham’s first shot on target early in the second half as the home side started brightly.
Alli was also off target with a header from a Trippier cross as Spurs looked for a way back into the game against an Ajax side happy to sit back on their lead.
Tottenham had a big let-off with 77 minutes gone as Ajax nearly added a second goal.
Former Southampton striker Dusan Tadic was involved in the move which saw a shot from David Neres come back off the post.
Spurs were unable to fashion a significant chance and suffered a 1-0 defeat in the semi-final first leg.
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