Martha Thomas breaks Leicester hearts to send Spurs into Women’s FA Cup final

It was not a moment of great quality that won this match, but it was not a game of great quality either, and Tottenham hardly cared as they celebrated coming back from a goal down to qualify for the first women’s FA Cup final of their history. With two minutes of extra time remaining Olga Ahtinen’s corner was half cleared, Matilda Vinberg sent it back in, it was flicked on at the near post and finally the Leicester defender Aileen Whelan headed it into the side of Martha Thomas’s face, off which the ball looped beyond Lize Kop and into the net.

Finally the great majority of the 18,078 fans in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium were back on their feet. Most had been issued with Spurs flags on their way in, and a few hours earlier had created an inspiring spectacle as they waved them in the late morning sunshine as the players entered the field. Leicester laid on six coaches to bring their fans to London, one of whom had brought an impressively large and resonant drum, but if at first they filled a single forlornly flag-free block it would not take long for the Foxes to curb home fans’ enthusiasm.

Spurs started the game well, and should have taken the lead in the seventh minute when Grace Clinton spun onto her left foot and picked out an excellent pass to Celin Bizet, running in from the left, whose first touch left Kop completely exposed in the Leicester goal. Her second, however, involved side-footing a low shot straight at the goalkeeper. Two minutes later the same players combined again, Bizet winning the ball in midfield and passing to Clinton, who played another fine pass into space on the right this time. Bizet avoided making the same mistake that saw her waste her side’s first chance but instead made a different one, blasting over the bar. Three minutes later Leicester had the lead.

CJ Bott carried the ball through midfield before passing right to Jutta Rantala, who was allowed to cut inside too easily and from 20 yards blasted a left-foot shot beyond the reach of Becky Spencer. Though the excellent Clinton soon had a similar chance, only for her right-foot shot to dribble feebly through to Kop, Leicester dominated the period immediately after the goal and could have scored another when Deanne Rose pulled the ball back to Sam Tierney, but the finish lacked conviction and Spencer saved with her feet.

Rose frequently troubled Spurs down Leicester’s left, and though the referee was unimpressed when she went down in the area under Ashleigh Neville’s challenge she had the last chance of the opening half, running onto an underhit attempted back-pass but losing her footing as she attempted to shoot and spearing well wide.

Tottenham came into this game on the back of three successive wins – counting their penalty shootout victory over Manchester City in the quarter-finals – and if in their previous nine games they had never scored more than once they had also conceded only eight. But the quality of defending suggested by that record was only occasionally in evidence here and Leicester had another fine chance within 20 seconds of the restart, Rantala playing in Lena Petermann, who delayed her shot long enough for Luana Buhler to get in the way of it.

Even if they avoided a disastrous start, the second half was largely dismal for Tottenham. With their chances of reaching Wembley ebbing and the crowd behind them it still took until stoppage time for the home side to put together a sustained – or even fleeting – spell of pressure, and they repeatedly wasted promising opportunities in wide areas with woeful crosses into the goalkeeper’s arms or, more frequently, out of play altogether.

But a triple substitution in the 77th minute allowed Jessica Naz to play more centrally and six minutes later, from a hopeful, looping ball forward, the Leicester defender and former Spurs captain Josie Green completely missed her kick and Naz sprinted clear before finishing coolly. From there Spurs should probably have won the game without needing extra time; in the third minute of stoppage time Thomas’s shot was excellently saved by Kop, and in the fourth England’s cross from the right was turned wide by Charlotte Grant at the far post.