A goal down and a man short within the first 15 minutes was the background to Tottenham crashing 4-0 against a rampant Real Madrid in the Bernabeu Stadium. Harry Redknapp's team may have overcome adversity before in the Champions League to reach the quarter final stage, but any further progression in the competition looks to be over.
Reduced to ten men after only fifteen minutes after two wild lunges from Peter Crouch, Spurs were always chasing the game as Madrid made the most of their numerical advantage.
Even damage limitation proved beyond the visitor's as they found themselves a goal behind after only four minutes.
And the goalscorer was Emmanuel Adebayor, who had already scored eight goals past Spurs during his time with North London rivals Arsenal. The Togo international took advantage of slack marking to power a header past Heurelho Gomes.
Spurs reached the interval with just the one goal deficit but any hopes of hanging onto this scoreline disappeared in a second half were the Spaniards just totally dominated.
Adebayor, on loan to Madrid from Manchester City, made it ten goals against Tottenham as he doubled the host's advantage with another header as the home side made the most of their first quarter final appearance in seven years.
Redknapp has lost every game played against Jose Mourinho's side's but he might have thought 2-0 was retrievable over two legs until with eighteen minutes remaining Spurs carelessly gave away possession.
Angel Di Maria was quickly released and he cut inside Benoit Assou-Ekotto to fire high into the top corner.
Still Madrid poured forward as Spurs struggled to hold back the white wave and humiliation was complete when Cristiano Ronaldo made it four just before the final whistle.
Referee: Felix Brych (GER)
Venue: Bernabeu Stadium Attendance: 80,000
Real Madrid scorers: Adebayor 5, 57, Di Maria 72, Ronaldo Tottenham scorers:
REAL MADRID 01 Casillas 02 Carvalho 03 Pepe (yellow card) 04 Sergio Ramos 12 Marcelo 07 Ronaldo 14 Alonso 22 Di Maria (Kaka 77) 23 Ozil 24 Khedira (Diarra 61) 28 Adebayor (yellow card) (Higuain 74)
Substitutes 13 Adan, 17 Arbeloa, 19 Garay, 08 Kaka, 10 Diarra, 11 Granero, 20 Higuain
TOTTENHAM 01 Gomes 03 Bale 13 Gallas 20 Dawson 22 Corluka (Bassong 80) 32 Assou-Ekotto 08 Jenas 11 Van der Vaart (yellow card) (Defoe 46 (yellow card) 14 Modric 30 Sandro 15 Crouch (red card)
Substitutes 23 Cudicini, 19 Bassong, 06 Huddlestone, 08 Jenas, 21 Kranjcar, 09 Pavlyuchenko, 18 Defoe
