Marine vs Tottenham Hotspur. The FA Cup Third Round.
Rossett Park.
Report as Carlos Vinicius nets a first-half hat-trick to help Spurs beat Marine 5-0 in the FA Cup third round; Lucas Moura and 16-year-old substitute Alfie Devine also on target for the north London club
Monday 11 January 2021 08:50, UK
Carlos Vinicius scored a first-half hat-trick as Tottenham avoided an FA Cup third-round upset after easing past non-League Marine 5-0.
The Premier League side, sitting 160 places above their hosts in the football pyramid - the biggest such gap in the competition's history - were given an early scare when Neil Kengni rattled the bar from distance.
Thereafter, though, it was all Spurs, with Vinicius opening the scoring midway through the first half with a simple tap in, before doubling his team's lead with another close-range finish on the half-hour mark.
Two minutes later, Lucas Moura's curling free-kick made it 3-0 to Spurs and Vinicius completed his hat-trick with a delightful lob eight minutes before half-time.
Sixteen-year-old substitute Alfie Devine completed the scoring with a low drive on the hour-mark as Jose Mourinho's side cruised into Monday night's draw for the fourth and fifth rounds.
Tottenham arrived at Rossett Park knowing they had nothing to gain and everything to lose in a potential banana skin of an FA Cup third-round clash against opponents sitting in the eighth tier of English football.
However, a 13-minute first-half hat-trick from Vinicius - handed a rare start in attack by Mourinho in a much-changed Spurs starting line-up - ended any dreams Neil Young's side may have harboured of causing the biggest upset in the famous old competition's long history.
It may have been different, however, had Kengni's thumping drive gone in after 20 minutes rather than striking the top of the bar, with Joe Hart thinking the trainee plumber's effort was going over as the back-up Spurs 'keeper withdrew his hand, only to get the fright of his life.
That near-miss seemed to spur the visitors on and soon after Vinicius found himself on the end of Dele Alli's inviting centre across the six-yard box to score at the second attempt, before the forward doubled his side's lead with another tap in after Bayleigh Passant had denied Matt Doherty.
If those were simple finishes, Lucas' strike moments later was anything but as the Brazil international curled home a free-kick from the edge of the box, with his compatriot Vinicius rounding off the first-half scoring with his own eye-catching effort to double his goals tally with his sixth for the club.
Both managers made a raft of changes at the break, with Mourinho bringing on Devine for his debut and the youngster made the most of his chance by becoming his team's youngest-ever scorer aged just 16 years and 163 days with a composed finish at the near post.
However, despite Mourinho introducing Gareth Bale for the closing stages, Marine managed to keep the final score down to 5-0, albeit thanks to a gilt-edged late miss from the previously deadly Vinicius.
Neil Young: "The run for me I am very proud of, you look at the teams we have played and we have beaten home and away. It is past our wildest dreams to bring Tottenham to Marine. I wish we could have done more.
"The cup run has been a lifesaver for us financially for where we are in non-League. There has been no help for teams in step three and below.
"Hopefully we have made non-League proud, but we have just got to take the positives of the whole run and what it will do for our football club.
"This could be our last game of the season. I wanted to get all the lads in, we don't know what is coming next, and I just wanted to make sure we had a huddle and told them how well they have done."
Jose Mourinho: "We start seriously and we finish seriously. We tried to kill the game as soon as we could, and we did that. The second half was a question of controlling the result, control the energy, control the potential injury, and of course I'm very happy with the way the players faced the game.
"You know, I think it was weird that we were ready for everything, even on the bench, the bench that we had, we were ready for everything.
"We didn't want to be surprised. We were ready for difficulties. We were ready for absolutely anything because we wanted to win the game.
"To be 4-0, 5-0 or 6-0, for us in fact doesn't make a difference. The difference for us is only to always have the game under control.
"They hit the bar yes but what could we do to stop it? We played always in their half. They didn't create any danger.
"They had that long-distance shot that I thought that Joe thought was not even going close to his goal so was an isolated situation.
"I have to admit that if they score 1-0 it would bring even more emotion to the game but it's OK."
Not much has been seen of the Brazilian since he joined Spurs on a season-long loan from Benfica in October, although after this eye-catching display, maybe we will see more glimpses of the player in the second half of the campaign.
The 25-year-old netted a 13-minute first-half hat-trick at Rossett Park, meaning he has now scored six goals in his last three starts for Spurs in all competitions, while also becoming the first player to net an FA Cup hat-trick for a side managed by Jose Mourinho since Frank Lampard for Chelsea against Macclesfield in January 2007.
And while two of his strikes were simple finishes, his third to complete the treble was a delicious chip that will live long in the memory.
Marine host Marske United on March 13, while Spurs take on Aston Villa at Villa Park on Wednesday night (kick-off 8.15pm), with the game live on Sky Sports Premier League.
