Tottenham player ratings v Real Madrid: Hugo was boss for Spurs

Serge Aurier-5.5

Per usual, there were moments of absolute brilliance and abject stupidity in Aurier’s play. If you remove his silly challenge of Toni Kroos which led to Real Madrid’s only goal, he played a stellar match. Unfortunately, fullbacks don’t get mulligans.

In fairness to the Ivory Coast defender, Kroos was likely going to score there anyway. There’s also a video floating around social media which seems to show the classy German going down before Aurier made contact. Either way, it was a foolish challenge to make and Aurier was justly punished for it.

On the other hand, the rest of his play was magnificent. He gave his club a real attacking threat down the right hand side for significant stretches of the match. Aurier also deserves immense credit for keeping Marcelo at bay. Containing the talented Brazilian is no easy task.

The key for Aurier moving forward will be eliminating idiotic decisions from his game. If he does that, Spurs could have a world-class player on their hands. Unfortunately, that’s an awfully big “if.”

Jan Vertonghen-7

As I mentioned before, Zidane clearly instructed his side to target Vertonghen at every opportunity. For the most part, the talented Belgian acquitted himself well against the onslaught of Real Madrid attackers.

He was forced to make too many tackles for my taste due to his lack of pace, but he got the vast majority of them spot on. Every time Achraf Hakimi seemed like he had a bit of space, Vertonghen slid in and knocked the ball away. It wasn’t Vertonghen’s best performance, but he made the most out of a very challenging situation.