Inter Milan scored four goals in the first half and then withstood a hat trick from Gareth Bale to secure a 4-3 win over Tottenham and take control of Group A in the Champions League.
Samuel Eto'o scored twice for the defending champion, which was up 3-0 and had a man advantage after just 14 minutes.
Captain Javier Zanetti scored in the second minute before Eto'o converted a penalty in the 11th, after goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes was sent off for pulling down Jonathan Biabiany.
Dejan Stankovic added a third three minutes later, and it looked like a rout when Eto'o added his second in the 35th.
But Bale pulled one back in the 52nd and added two more late goals to provide an unnecessarily nervous finish for Inter - which had completely dominated the first half.
Inter leads Group A with seven points, while Tottenham has four. The teams will now meet at White Hart Lane in London in two weeks' time.
''In the first half we played really well, but in the second half we were a bit too relaxed,'' Inter coach Rafael Benitez said. ''They played well on the counter-attack and we paid for this. We left too much space on the flanks.
''I'm really pleased with the first half and am really confident after that first half, much more than being worried about the second half.''
Inter scored with its first attack as Coutinho passed to Eto'o, who slipped the ball behind William Gallas for Zanetti to run onto and fire past Gomes.
The Brazilian goalkeeper's night just got worse when he brought down Biabiany as the French striker ran onto Wesley Sneijder's through ball in the eighth.
''The first half was massively disappointing,'' Spurs coach Harry Redknapp said. ''We started the game sloppily and didn't start as I wanted us to start. I said at half time that all we had to play for was pride. I said we had to make sure we didn't leave on the end of a crazy score.
''You play five minutes and you're 2-0 down and your goalkeeper is sent off and you're looking at a long 80 minutes. I thought we played much better in the second half, especially with the wide men. We were bold.''
Referee Damir Skomina consulted with his assistant Matej Jug before giving Gomes a straight red.
Reserve goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini came on immediately for Luka Modric, but his first job of the night was to collect the ball from the back of the net as Eto'o dispatched the penalty into the top left corner.
Tottenham's struggles continued in the 14th when Stankovic exchanged passes with Eto'o on the edge of the area and shot low into the corner of Cudicini's goal.
Bale and Aaron Lennon on the wings were Spurs' main attacking outlet, but Peter Crouch, isolated in attack, was easily shackled by Lucio and Walter Samuel in the center of Inter's defense.
Lennon eventually picked out Crouch with a cross in the 27th, but the England striker headed over.
Inter increased its lead in the 35th in simple fashion. Coutinho picked out Eto'o's run behind Gallas and he prodded the ball beyond Cudicini.
''He did well and has a lot of confidence,'' Benitez said of Eto'o. ''The team is also playing well for him and this is always good for a striker. I hope he keeps playing well for us, so we can keep winning games.
''Eto'o can score a lot, he has a strong mentality and if the team keeps playing well alongside him I think he can score more than 30, like he said at the start of the season.''
Cudicini, the son of former AC Milan goalkeeper Fabio Cudicini, twice stopped Inter from adding a fifth in the first half, first from Eto'o and then with a double save from Maicon.
Inter's level of intensity dropped considerably after the break, and the second half was all about Bale. The speedy winger made a long run before slotting the ball past Julio Cesar in the far corner of the net.
Bale's second came in similar fashion in the 90th, and he grabbed a hat trick just a minute later after Lennon ran at a tiring Inter defense in injury time, but there wasn't enough time left for Tottenham to find an equalizer.
''He's an amazing young player,'' Redknapp said. ''He can play left back, wide left, he can score goals and can run all day. In the first half he gave the right back a torrid time and he's one of the best in the world.
''Tottenham is a club that wants to progress and doesn't want to sell him,'' he said. ''It would be a way of saying that we are a selling club and we need to build a team around him.''
