Only a meltdown of mega proportions will now prevent Tottenham from qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League.

A battling 1-1 draw snatched from one of European football’s most formidable fortresses was sweetened with the news that Borussia Dortmund had failed to do the business at Apoel Nicosia, picking up a draw at the perceived ‘whipping boys’ of an extremely complicated group.

No one deserves this success more than Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentinian coach from Santa Fe who has taken this Tottenham Hotspur side top of a group that many pundits thought would only ever lead them into a Europa League campaign.

And he has done so without the transfer war chest nor excessive wage structure that fellow English participants like Chelsea and the two Manchester clubs have at their disposal.

His success, and, of course that of his close, tightly knit team has been built on a foundation of careful planning, attention to detail and an almost obsessive work ethic that makes everyone better prepared, fitter, united and generally better all round players.

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What we saw as early as half time was a team that embodies my idea that English sides seem to have made a quantum leap in the Champions League this season and are well and truly back in the shake up to lift the Champions League trophy in Kiev next year.

On Tuesday night what we witnessed was an English club performing in the most un-English of ways. Serge Aurier and Davinson Sanchez worked their triangles on the flanks in a similar way that Dani Alves and Gerard Piqué of the old Barcelona used to, while Harry Winks and Christian Eriksen worked tirelessly with pinpoint accuracy.

They brought to mind the very best of Spain’s midfield play, with Fernando Llorente and Harry Kane creating more than enough problems in attack for the Madrid defence.

You always sense when you are playing Real Madrid that at any given moment anything is possible; a bounce here, a referee decision there, a lucky deflection, but perhaps the biggest compliment that can be paid to Pochettino and his men is that at no point did you really believe that Tottenham were not going to get something from this game even after Aurier’s rash tackle put the home side level just before the break with a dubious decision from the referee.

Half the battle against a mighty force like Real Madrid is the building of belief; the “Can we do it? Yes, we can,” approach and one that we got it in spades from this Spurs side.

After the game, as Pochettino made his way across to the Spurs fans to thank them for their support, he also received a generous ovation from the Real Madrid fans.

It was the recognition of a performance but also a hint from the Madrid fans. But they will have to wait quite a while, for as long as Tottenham matches his ambition, I feel he is happy to continue creating something special in North London.

This has been quite an eventful week for the Spurs coach. Pep Guardiola’s comment that Spurs are the ‘Harry Kane team’ – the implication that without Kane they would struggle – did not go down well.

The comment seemed particularly ill-judged coming, as it did, from a manager that had in the past enjoyed boundless success with Barcelona due to the presence of the freak of nature that is Leo Messi, something that even Pep has openly agreed with.

At no point when the paths of the two managers had crossed had Pochettino ever referred to Guardiola’s Barcelona as the ‘Leo Messi team’. Pochettino felt compelled to reply and was not scared to do so.

But more importantly what it demonstrated was that just as a player, he has no fear of anybody, whatever their prestige is, and if he is trying to instil that fearlessness into his players then he has to demonstrate precisely the same characteristics as a coach.

The spat with Guardiola gave him the perfect opportunity to do just that and meant that, alongside wonderful interviews he gave in the Spanish press last week even before a ball had been kicked, Pochettino had – not before time – moved on from being regarded by many in Spain as merely the former Espanyol coach now plying his trade in the Premier League to a rightful position placing him alongside Europe’s coaching elite.

His players are on a fantastic journey with the assistance of a magnificent coaching team around them – they love what they are doing and share both his passion and ambition.

In terms of the match, I beg to differ with many of my Spanish colleagues, who felt that Spurs defended and didn’t do much else, because in my opinion I thought that for most of the game this was a Spurs side that controlled the game even when they didn’t have the ball.

Worthy of special praise was young Winks, who came of age at the Bernabeu in a game where many other similarly inexperienced players in similar situations could, and indeed, have previously frozen and been overwhelmed.

With a pass rate accuracy of 94% and a spirit, attitude and commitment to the Spurs cause that only someone who has supported the club all their lives could even begin to comprehend, Pochettino will, quite rightly, be positively bursting with pride over the performance of the young man who under his tutelage has blossomed into a full England international and who chose the very biggest of stages to repay the unswerving faith shown in him by the coach and his team.

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A cursory glance at the line ups might have suggest a mismatch and it is also worth noting that the current success in this European campaign has been achieved without the force that is Dele Alli coming into the reckoning and with players like Victor Wanyama and Eric Lamela sidelined.

It has fallen to the likes of Sissoko to step up to the plate.

What Pochettino knew all too well is that, at the Santiago Bernabeu, the one thing they could not do is apply pressure high up the pitch and simultaneously keep possession because with the space such tactics would create, Real Madrid is going to kill you. The plan therefore was to slow down the pace of the game by keeping the defensive lines close and it worked very well.

Mind you, it still needed a world-class performance from Hugo Lloris in the Spurs goal although the visitors will also argue that at the other end, Keylor Navas also proved his worth with fine stops from both Kane and Eriksen.

Can Spurs go on to win it? They might just not have the strength in depth required to do so, but who knows?

But one thing is for certain. Both Pochettino and his valiant Spurs side ‘graduated’ with first class honours at the Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday night and absolutely no one is going to relish taking them on in a two-legged knock-out tie.