Olympiacos 2-2 Tottenham: 3 talking points | UEFA Champions League 2019/2020
Matchday 1 of the Champions League group stage kicked off on Wednesday, with Tottenham travelling to Greece to take on Olympiacos.
The hosts came into the match off the back of an amazing eight-game winning sequence in all competitions, while Spurs emphatically defeated Crystal Palace 4-0 over the weekend.
The Premier League side got their first opportunity of the game in the 26th minute when Italian referee Gianluca Rocchi pointed to the spot after Yassine Meriah tripped Harry Kane in the box, sticking to his decision even after a VAR review.
As expected, Harry Kane dusted himself off and dispatched the penalty with aplomb to put Tottenham 1-0 up. That goal came against the run of play, and Pochettino's men soon doubled their advantage with Lucas scoring from right outside the box just four minutes later.
Daniel Podence halved the deficit for the home side right before half-time, with Mathieu Valbuena restoring parity with a well-taken penalty which he had won after a foul by Jan Vertonghen.
Despite both sides' late push for a winner, neither club was able to secure all three points, and on the balance of play, a stalemate was probably a fair result. Here, we shall be taking a look at three talking points from the fixture.
#3 Lucas Moura makes a case for more playing time
Having fallen down the pecking order at PSG in his final two years in the French capital, Lucas Moura arrived in Tottenham in January 2018, and since then he has put up solid displays for the club, scoring 17 goals from 63 appearances in all competitions for the Lily Whites.
The most important of those came in the second leg of the semifinal clash with Ajax last season, where his hat-trick helped Tottenham overturn a 3-0 aggregate deficit to progress to their first ever Champions League final.
However, rather cruelly, the 27-year-old was left out of the starting lineup in the showpiece event, which has been a common theme throughout his Spurs career.
So far this season, the Brazilian has started just two of Tottenham's five Premier League matches and made an immediate impact just 19 seconds after coming off the bench to equalize in the 2-2 draw with Manchester City on matchday 2.
Lucas Moura is a versatile player who offers directness and pace to the attack, and these qualities were brought to the fore in Greece.
Apart from scoring a wonder strike to take Spurs 2-0 up, the former PSG man also starred, keeping the Olympiacos defence on the backfoot with his pace and trickery. Furthermore, his 96.2% passing accuracy was the highest in the game for players who played at least 60 minutes and attempted 15 passes or more.
With Tottenham travelling away to Leicester on Saturday in the Premier League, Lucas Moura did his chances of starting against the Foxes a world of good with his display against Olympiacos, and it would not come as a surprise if he were to star in that game.