Antonio Conte admitted he was "a bit scared" after Harry Kane missed a penalty with Tottenham 3-2 up in the final minutes of their win at home to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Spurs picked up an important three points in the Champions League against their German opponents but it was far from comfortable, despite the away team going down to 10 men just under an hour in.
The hosts entered the closing stages one man and two goals up, but Frankfurt gave themselves hope when Faride Alidou scored to make it 3-2 in the 87th minute.
Kane had the chance to seal victory for good five minutes later but missed a penalty after scoring one earlier in the night.
His team held on nonetheless, but Conte admits he was afraid after Kane unusually missed the 92nd-minute spot-kick.
"When we missed the penalty I was a bit scared," he said. "I thought 'anything can happen now'.
"It's a pity about the final part [of the match]. It was a really good performance but we must take a big lesson. Not only the players but myself because I tried also to exploit this situation, giving rest to the players and those who had a yellow card.
"Everyone thought it was over, even the fans. But the game finishes with the final whistle. We made a big mistake. We conceded a corner and they score, then we had the opportunity to score and we missed the penalty.
"There was a positive aspect and then there was the negative aspect but for us it will be a great achievement to go to the next round because this was our target."
Making it to the next round would have been very much in doubt had Spurs failed to win given they drew their previous match with Frankfurt and lost to Sporting CP, and the manager admits it would have been disastrous.
"It would have been a disaster if we drew a game like this," he said.
"We have to stay focused until the end. We scored good goals. We suffered. We had to try to handle the situation. We had to stay in the game. We must take a lesson from this."
Tottenham go into their final two matches of this round top of Group D and will secure qualification with a win at home to Sporting in a fortnight.
Source : 90min