Real Madrid 4-0 Tottenham: Former Gunner Adebayor teaches 10 men a Champions League lesson

In the end, they had no answers, no response, no way of coping.

Yet even as Harry Redknapp and his men acknowledged the nightmare they had endured, the chastening kicking that, perhaps, has always been around the corner, the regrets will never go away.

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What might have happened had Aaron Lennon been fit, rather than pulling out with a sore-throat minutes before the start, throwing Spurs out of kilter when they needed to be firm of purpose, we will never know.

But despite that, the defining moment was not Emmanuel Adebayor’s two headers, the belter from Angel Di Maria or the late volley from Cristiano Ronaldo that went straight through Heurelho Gomes and gave Tottenham an impossible mountain to climb.

It came after 15 minutes as Peter Crouch, of all people, forget the single most basic lesson of European football.

When you are away from home, in the first leg, especially playing one of the true giants of the game, you simply do not do anything stupid, do not lose your senses.

Yet Crouch did precisely that. Not once, but twice, first clattering into Sergio Ramos and then sending Marcelo sprawling.

Two needless, pointless fouls. Two yellow cards. One red. And the death of a dream.

What made it worse, far worse, was that Spurs then had to endure the inevitable for the next 75 minutes, given a total chasing by Jose Mourinho’s men.

They did not need Ronaldo to be brilliant, Mesut Ozil to fly up and down, or Xabi Alonso to show, once again, how much Liverpool lost when Rafa Benitez ran out of love for the midfielder.

They did not need that because, basically, they were better.

For all that Michael Dawson was immense alongside William Gallas, that Gareth Bale threatened to flicker into life, it was finger in the dyke stuff at the back.

Eventually, the pressure would take its toll, the limbs would run out of gas, the constant movement of the ball between the white shirts would end in chances that Madrid would take.

And so it proved, the scoreline an emphatic reflection of the gap between the teams.

It did not help, at all, that all Redknapp’s planning was thrown up into the air just before his players walked out.

Redknapp had planned to use Lennon and Bale as the raiders on the counter attack, backing their pace to cause real problems and maybe tease out the away goal that was so required.

But Lennon came in from the warm-up complaining he was not well enough to play, forcing Redknapp to send in Jermaine Jenas, change his shape and hope.

That Jenas was the closest man to Adebayor - and not close enough - just four minutes in as the former Arsenal man, who scored eight in nine games against Spurs for the Gunners, rose to repeat that pain and squeeze his header past Luka Modric on the line, was just an accident.

What Crouch did soon afterwards was far more costly and with Rafa Van Der Vaart absolutely terrible - where has his form gone? - Spurs were forced back with no out-ball until Jermain Defoe replaced the Dutchman at half-time.

Reaching the interval just one down was a minor triumph, while Bale, having raced past Pepe and Ramos from Dawson’s clever ball, might have done better than hit the side-netting from 14 yards.

That, though, was a rare moment of threat, with Marcelo always available on the left for Real.

Ronaldo went close a few times, once a whisker wide, with Adebayor needed only to be an inch taller to convert when Ramos, on his knees, headed across goal.

But there was to be no such failure just before the hour. Ronaldo caught Spurs napping with a short corner, Marcelo centred and Adebayor steered his header home.

Only once, when Pepe miskicked to let in Bale but Ricardo Cavalho cleaned up, did Spurs look as if they might snatch something from the night.

But the gaps became bigger, the domination of Madrid increased and there was an inevitability about what happened in the last 20 minutes.

Di Maria’s strike was stunning, arrowing into the top corner, although Gomes knew he should have held onto Ronaldo’s effort which slipped through his grasp.

It was just too much for Spurs to cope with. Next week will only be the punctuation. The magical journey is over, sadly. Crouchy, what have you done?