Here are our Tottenham talking points after their 2-0 victory at Eintracht Frankfurt to book their place in the last 16 of the Champions League
Only Tottenham Hotspur could cause people to look at the Champions League table and then rub their eyes.
For the lowly 14th-placed side in the Premier League managed to finish in fourth in Europe above the likes of - brace yourselves - Barcelona, Real Madrid, last year's winners PSG, Juventus, Inter Milan and not to mention Chelsea, Manchester City and Newcastle among 32 other teams.
You could throw in a couple of former Tottenham managers' sides as well if you want in Jose Mourinho's Benfica and Antonio Conte's Napoli, although the former sneaked into the play-offs with a remarkable conclusion to their victory over Real Madrid.
Spurs do not require the play-offs. Thomas Frank's side go straight through to the last 16 of the Champions League with a record of five wins, two draws and one defeat in Paris against the reigning holders, which was actually their best away performance until Wednesday evening in the snow of Frankfurt.
Tottenham also recorded six clean sheets from the eight games as they racked up 17 points. Guglielmo Vicario, who did not have a single save to make on Wednesday night, kept out more teams than any other goalkeeper in the long league phase.
Some will point to a kinder draw for Spurs and that four of their opponents did not eventually make it through to the knockout stages. There were also some lucky escapes in Bodo and Monaco, but cup football is about beating what is in front of you.
For some reason, the north London club just seem to deal with the pressure of European football that little bit better than they do the Premier League.
That experience was only strengthened by the run to last year's triumph in Bilbao and the feeling of silverware again after almost two decades and even though a repeat in Budapest seems the most unlikely of scenarios, that won't stop people, including those 3,000 Spurs fans who braved the cold in Germany, from dreaming.
The last 16 will pit Tottenham against one of four sides - Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Club Brugge or Galatasaray.
After finishing fourth in the league phase, Spurs will benefit from a new rule this season which ensures they will play the second leg at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the last 16 and also the quarter-finals should they progress.
Then there is the huge prize money in this lucrative competition. Just to begin with all 36 teams in the league stage get a basic payment of £16.18million, whilst Tottenham, in finishing in the top eight, get an additional £9.56million.
There is also the £1.82million for every league phase victory with the north London outfit bringing in £9.1million by beating Villarreal, Copenhagen, Slavia Prague, Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt.
A draw brings in £606,000 so Spurs secured over £1.2million from their games against Monaco and Bodo/Glimt.
Teams also collect £239,000 per league position, meaning Tottenham's fourth-place finish hands them another £7.8million, which drives their total prize money from the Champions League up to just under £43million.
That's not taking into account the big gate receipts from the home game or the other food, drink and merchandise sales that come from those encounters.
The prize money continues to rise as the tournament goes on, with the quarter-finals, semi-finals, runners-up and winners all getting £10.7million, £12.9million, £15.9million and £21.5million respectively.
So in short Spurs have made a lot of money from both getting into the competition through Ange Postecoglou taking them to the Europa League triumph and subsequent Champions League qualification and then Frank steering them into the last 16.
The Dane now finds himself in a remarkably similar situation to his predecessor. Postecoglou's run to the Carabao Cup semi-finals aside, the Premier League position is roughly the same and the FA Cup has been exited. Europe is the only avenue of real excitement ahead.
Frank will no doubt point to the patience that Postecoglou received because of his European exploits. Those adventures appeared to keep the Greek-born Australian in his job long enough to capture the trophy in Spain.
Should Frank also be given the same leeway for the European excellence and the vast sums of money brought into the club in doing so? Some will say he has paid for further time, those more cynical might suggest he has handed Spurs the money required for his compensation if he was to be sacked.
The head coach may also point to the fact that Tottenham have lost only three of their past nine matches. Others will point to the level of the opposition in those games and that many of the draws and defeats should have been victories.
Tottenham are definitely finding more joy with a back three and they are creating far more chances than they were before in those days of XG woe. Again the standard of the opposition should be taken into account but Frank will note the increased numbers around the team.
Archie Gray, who was excellent in the falling snow in Frankfurt, said that the players are getting to grips with the 3-4-3 formation, which often sits like a 3-4-2-1.
"Definitely. It's something new to us and we're enjoying it at the moment," said the 19-year-old. "It's just learning the patterns and where the free players are and things like that, but it's really enjoyable at the moment and hopefully we can just carry that into the Premier League."
Frankfurt came into this encounter in a mess. They had conceded three goals in each of their previous five matches, had key attacking injuries, had not won a game yet in 2026 and were without a permanent manager with Dennis Schmitt placed in interim charge of the team.
Yet the atmosphere inside the Deutsche Bank Park was still as noisy and intimidating as ever and Spurs themselves were without 14 unavailable players, meaning Frank only had 11 senior outfield ones to choose from.
Gray admitted that in the opening stages of the game, the north London side were "a little bit confused" at first over whether Frankfurt would press or not.
"It was a little bit of both and when we got further up the pitch they sat off a bit. It was difficult to break them down but we knew over time not every team can stay like that and we eventually got the goal," he said.
The man who received the loudest noise of the night, but not in a good way, was Randal Kolo Muani, who had a whirlwind 36 hours or so.
He missed the initial flight to Germany after a crash involving his Ferrari on the M25 as he drove from Hotspur Way to Stansted Airport. Photos of the smashed right side of the sportscar only show how fortunate the Frenchman was to escape injury.
The 27-year-old managed to jump on a later flight with Wilson Odobert, who had stopped behind him on the motorway to check on his team-mate.
Frank made it clear that the on-loan PSG man was in the right frame of mind to play and he certainly did, with one of his best performances in a Spurs shirt, all the while being booed with every touch by the Frankfurt fans who loved him during his goal-laden time in Germany.
His movement and hold-up play were on point and he looked entirely comfortable back in a stadium he knows well.
Spurs thought they had opened the scoring within three minutes when Kolo Muani wriggled into the box and Xavi Simons slammed home his low parried cross. However, Destiny Udogie was offside in the build-up and deemed to be interfering with play as he blocked a defender.
After a string of chances in the first half, Spurs finally scored two minutes into the second period when Xavi's deep cross was headed into the six-yard box by the unmarked Cristian Romero and Kolo Muani flicked the ball into the net with his heel.
After being booed mercilessly by the Frankfurt fans, he celebrated his goal with a big smile as his team-mates looked delighted for him and he was pushed in front of the travelling Tottenham faithful to the right of the goal.
"He's an amazing player. He works so hard in training every day and he deserves this goal," said Gray. "An amazing player and an amazing guy. He deserves it."
It also continues Kolo Muani's strange trend of only scoring against his former clubs so far in his loan spell and Spurs might just hope to draw Juventus in the last 16 with that in mind, if the Frenchman is still in N17 and not employed in Turin.
Frank admitted to football.london that he had joked with Kolo Muani about his strange selective scoring habit during this loan spell.
"First of all, I was very happy that he scored the goal. He looked like a threat. He almost got an assist with the first one that was disallowed. He was very involved in that. Great action. I think he had great actions throughout the game," he said.
"So I'm very happy that he got the goal and I said to him 'please start scoring against others than your former clubs, that would be nice'! But we know when you come to a new club, a new country, it's never straightforward and never in the Premier League. I hope this will give him some confidence."
Kolo Muani was replaced later in the game by Dominic Solanke who after further Spurs chances to score were spurned, rubber stamped Frank's decision to bring him back into the Champions League squad for Mathys Tel by making it goals in consecutive matches.
The England striker sealed the win in the 77th minute with anticipation, acceleration and a low assured finish after running on to Mahmoud Dahoud's poor header back.
"I'm so happy not only to have him in the Champions League squad, but also it was a tough decision," Frank told football.london. "It was a big game tonight and I wanted to start Dom, but we need to take clever decisions like we've done throughout, because we have been pushing him to the limit.
"So we know every sign, every experience says that it was the right thing not to start him. So I'm happy that it turned out to be a very good decision."
There were other positives for Frank with Joao Palhinha back and doing well on the right of a back three alongside the battling Kevin Danso, who picked up a knock in the first half and gamely limped on, and Romero, who picked up the Champions League player of the match award on his 150th appearance for the club.
Both full-backs covered plenty of ground without too much end product, while Wilson Odobert looks to be gaining confidence with every match and believes again that he can dribble past anyone.
Pape Matar Sarr managed a full energetic 90 minutes in a rare start in the past month after his time winning the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal and subsequent illness.
There is also a growing relationship between Gray and Xavi in the centre of the pitch with the 19-year-old and 22-year-old starting to understand each other's games.
"He's a joy. Xavi's a joy," said Gray. "We say to each other, I mean me and him - I trust everyone, but when I give the ball to him I know he's going to trust me back just as much. We try to get this little link-up with one touch and two touch passes, one-twos and all that.
"He's a pleasure to play with, getting in those spaces, it's so difficult to pick up for centre-backs and to track it's horrible. He was unbelievable tonight."
Spurs' creativity has leapt up thanks to Xavi's regular starts. He's still raw and very inconsistent with his passing but there's familiar elements in his play that touch on the strengths of other Tottenham playmakers over the years with the dribbling of Maddison and the quick thinking of Eriksen.
When he finds his consistency in the tighter spaces in the Premier League then he can become a force to be reckoned with.
Spurs will only get a night to reflect on their Champions League achievement and the gap it will now give both them and Arsenal around the next north London derby after missing out on the play-off round.
"It's a dream," said Gray. "I was just saying to Dom, finishing in the top four in the Champions League, we'll never take that for granted. You see the teams that are in the Champions League and it's the best of the best and that's where we want to be, so it's a pleasure."
Frank was proud of his players for putting themselves through it all again when so short on numbers.
"Very happy with the performance. I think the players showed great character, their mentality. We basically had 12 available players for Dortmund and in this game and in both games the players stepped up," he said.
"This game we were more or less in control from the beginning to the end of the game. That's a big thing. I need to say, we've seen some of the results in the Champions League tonight. We've seen some of the results throughout the league phase. There's no easy games. So we're sitting here with 17 points, ending, finishing fourth in the group stage, sixth clean sheet.
"It's very impressive, but throughout the game we were good in the high pressure. We looked strong when we defended low. I'm very happy how we progressed with the ball and how we got quick up the pitch. And then, of course, still working on creating, but we created quite a lot today, which I'm very pleased with.
"And then, of course, the fans were fantastic. Very happy, so many of them travelling in numbers and the support throughout the game."
It is also Frank's first ever Champions League campaign as a manager and he has guided his team into the last 16 and above the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and PSG at a time when his future is the subject of plenty of speculation.
"Yeah, of course I'm happy, but it's not about me. I think I'm very happy that the staff, the players, everyone, how we prepared the team for these games in general, it's very positive," he said.
"We need to look forward to the round of 16, which is hugely important that you are qualified for everything, but also gives us some time between games to train. And I also think the 3-4-3 also looked good in the last three games."
Depending on fit players, Frank will likely bring the formation into Sunday's Premier League clash against Manchester City, a match that will raise the same problem that began the crumbling of Postecoglou's relationship with sections of the Spurs fanbase. When is losing a good thing?
For once again Tottenham go into this game knowing that if they beat Pep Guardiola's side then it hands a big advantage in the title race to their most hated rivals Arsenal, who Spurs will play a couple of weeks after.
Postecoglou could not understand the idea of wanting to lose a football match and he told football.london back then that his experience on the touchline in that game was his worst in 25 years as a manager as he feared being accused of throwing the result.
This match comes earlier in the season than that one and at a similar time to when Spurs beat City under Conte with a Harry Kane goal, a match which had little fuss around it of such a nature despite Arsenal being top at that time.
However, this game has already got a similar noise to the Postecoglou one around it, with 15,000 fans on X liking one post claiming it is a must-lose match.
Just as he bought himself some relief with the fans, so Frank will head into Friday's press conference at Hotspur Way having to manage what he says carefully.
No manager in their right mind would ever want to lose a match or speak about doing so, particularly when in a perilous position in the league with only one win in eight in the Premier League, but Frank will also be wary of a section of Spurs fans being more concerned about their rivals' fate on this occasion than their own.
It's a no-win situation for a manager who has already lost much of the fanbase and will likely be criticised for whatever he says.
Sunday brings more planned protests as well with Change for Tottenham aiming to get the fans meeting outside the south stand before the game and chanting throughout with the message for supporters not to spend inside the stadium and walking out on 75 minutes.
It comes following a moment in the aftermath of the final whistle at Frankfurt when the travelling fans and the players and Frank were one again, both applauding each others' efforts. How that relationship looks on Sunday in front of the home crowd will soon become clear.
The club can do their part to boost both Frank, the club and the supporters with some transfer activity in the days ahead.
Frank has admitted he needs help, even if any help must be long-term as well as short-term, and right now Tottenham have only balanced the books in the transfer market. It's not a look that screams ambition, even amidst the difficulties of the January transfer market.
Spurs have backing from the Lewis family to make something happen but also now the transfer cash boost of the Champions League money.
They also have the selling point, however brief it may be, of showing prospective targets that Champions League table and those last 16 games to be played in March and hopefully beyond.
There is still a chance to make a statement in the coming days and Spurs need ready-made attacking help if they are to turn chances into goals and succeed in the weeks and months ahead. It's speculating to accumulate and push the club away from the drop zone.
On a snowy night in Frankfurt, Tottenham Hotspur warmed their fans once again but they now need to show the ambition that states they deserve to remain among Europe's best both on and off the pitch.
