Tense night leaves Spurs' Europa semi-final bid in the melting pot as Eintracht share the spoils

Pre-match fever on the High Road : Picture by @YTJourno

Europa League Quarter-Final 1st leg

Tottenham (1) 1 Pedro Porro 26

Eintracht Frankfurt (1) 1 Ekitike 6

The stuff of dreams down the road at the Emirates two days ago. They simply couldn't afford it to be the stuff of nightmares at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Spurs certainly avoided that fate, but have a tough gig next week to earn a place in this year's Europa League semi-final.

They did well to recover from the setback of conceding an early goal and enjoyed some good spells of pressure that probably deserved more than just a Pedro Porro equaliser.

The Germans owed their draw in large part to the agility of young Brazilian keeper Kaua Santos - who rose to the occasion several times.

Spurs fans have been in mutinous mood over the chairmanship of Daniel Levy of late but they put on a united front for Ange Postecoglou, even after going a goal down.

The Frankfurt opener came after just six minutes when James Maddison was robbed of the ball high up the field and a quick transfer out to Hugo Ekitike on the left ended with the 22-year-old French striker cutting across Pedro Porro and drilling a fine low shot across Guglielmo Vicario and into the corner of the net.

Ekitike caused problems all night and will carry a threat in the return leg for sure. Spurs will hope Dejan Kulusevski recovers sufficiently from his injury lay-off to play a part.

Frankfurt, third in the Bundesliga but well off the title-winning pace being set by Bayern and Leverkusen, looked comfortable early on after taking the lead, but were soon under pressure.

Spurs almost drew level when Dom Solanke's chip was headed just over at the far post by a stretching Brennan Johnson but the equaliser came when James Maddison dropped a shoulder to make for the left byline and his cutback was smartly put away by Pedro Porro with a cheeky backheel flick.

Could Spurs eke out a lead to take to Germany? Lucas Bergvall was within a whisker of putting the hosts in front when he crashed a shot from 25 yards onto the underside of the crossbar. Moments later and it needed a fine fingertip save from Santos to deny Heung-Min son and from the corner, Rodrigo Bentancur headed onto the top of the bar.

Unlucky during that flurry in front of the massed South Stand, Maddison was next to have a go, cutting in on his left foot to send another shot that Santos blocked.

There would be one more close shave at the death when Micky Van de Ven got a flick from a Bentancur header that the impressive Santos tipped behind.

No lead to take on their travels then, but this tight tie could still go either way.

Spurs: (4-3-3) Vicario - Pedro Porro, Romero, van de Ven, Udogie (Spence 79) - Bergvall, Bentancur, Maddison (Sarr 79) - Johnson, Solanke (Richarlison 88), Son (Tel 79)

Frankfurt: (4-2-3-1) Kaua Santos - Kristensen, Koch, Theate, Brown (Nkounkou 89) - Skhiri, Tuta - Gotze (Uzun 90), Larsson, Bahoya (Chaibi 70) - Ekitike (Wahl 89)

Attendance: 57,849