All of English football can feel a little better about itself this morning. An English manager is through to the last eight of Europe’s premier club competition for the first time since Terry Venables guided Barcelona there in 1986.
That’s one heck of a wait, an embarrassment if we are being frank, for a country that purports to be a heavyweight in the global game.
Harry Redknapp, a manager not always given his due, is the man who follows Venables, having taken Tottenham Hotspur to the Champions League quarter-finals after a famous two-legged conquest of AC Milan.
Their progress last night was a triumph of defensive doggedness and resourcefulness under pressure rather than tactics and strategy but it can now be said that Spurs have shown just about every quality in this remarkable, unpredictable campaign.
They are first through from the Premier League and three English clubs in the final eight is now a reasonable expectation; though, perversely, this was a night that told us to be a little less rude about Italian football. Until Inter Milan go out of the Champions League, anyway.
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AC Milan, so leaden in the first leg, were revitalised, none more so than one of the oldest among their number, the brilliant Clarence Seedorf. He has won this competition four times but defeat still hurts.
As he left the pitch, he had to break off an interview with Italian TV because he was starting to sob. At 34, this may have been his last of 153 matches in the Champions League. His farewell was a performance of unerring class at the base of Milan’s midfield.
True, this was not the Milan of Van Basten, Gullit and Maldini. This was the Milan of Kevin-Prince Boateng, a Spurs reject who played less than 20 games in two seasons at White Hart Lane.
The Milan, too, of Robinho, another Premier League discard. But the Italian side did not depart this competition for want of boldness. The evidence of the first leg had been that Milan did not have it within them to overturn a 1-0 deficit but it was necessary to reappraise from the kick-off when we saw the attacking line-up of the Rossoneri.
Robinho and Pato were full of running and inventiveness. The disappointment from this attacking trident was Zlatan Ibrahimovic, although you could probably have guessed that already.
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Of those three, he should have the least to prove. His CV is a list of many of Europe’s most prestigious clubs — Ajax, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona, Milan — but the kindest word he often tends to merit is enigmatic even after winning six league titles spread between Holland, Italy and Spain.
He is dogged by the statistic that he has scored 13 goals in 49 matches in European football compared with 110 in 213 games in Serie A and La Liga, a marked difference in strike rates. No doubt he would plead that Champions League defences tend to be the tightest, but those are useful numbers for the prosecution.
There is also a flurry of statistics about his failure to score in crucial European knockout matches and he never looked like providing evidence to the contrary last night, despite all the possession enjoyed by Milan.
The self-proclaimed best player in world football does not have a track record in this competition to match his boasts.
Poor old Zlatan. What is it about him and the Champions League? His former club, Inter, won this competition last season, but only after he had departed. This year, the champions may well be Barcelona, whom he left to move back to Italy last summer.
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Last night the big Swede did not manage a proper attempt at goal save for a couple of big, booming free kicks from long range.
Most of the chances involved Robinho and Pato. The former ended up in the net, although sadly for him not the ball, after Pato had rounded Heurelho Gomes. William Gallas hacked off the line.
Another mêlée in the box in the second half saw Robinho skew a shot wide from close range. Tottenham were living on their wits, with Michael Dawson and Gallas required to make crucial blocks and headers and Sandro proving a forceful presence in midfield.
This was an exercise in defiance. No one ever doubted Robinho’s ability on the ball — it was just that Manchester City were very happy to let someone else try to coax it from him on a weekly basis. Last night, though, he was even tracking back diligently to launch fresh assaults on Spurs.
Then there was Pato who, at 21, has been tracked for a couple of years by Chelsea and, after roaming threateningly last night, alarmed all of White Hart Lane with a shot that fizzed into the side-netting.
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But Spurs survived to make this one of the greatest nights in the club’s history, even if the final whistle was marked as much by relief as celebration.