Europa League final: Trophy at stake for underperforming premiership clubs Spurs and United

Irish Times

20-05-2025

Europa League final: Tottenham Hotspur vs Manchester United,
San Mamés, Bilbao, Wednesday, 8pm,
Premier Sports 1 & TNT Sports 1
Gatwick on Tuesday morning was full of
Spurs
fans. They were in the Pret a Manger, they were in the Pizza Express, they were in the Wagamama, but mostly they were standing gawping at the destination board, which featured a baffling number of Vueling flights to Bilbao, a squeezing of the schedule that led to inevitable delays and confusion.
The queue for the three open booths at passport control in Bilbao was a vast python of white shirts, speckled with the occasional tree green or purple. The bus into town was almost entirely Spurs, with a handful of businessmen and a bewildered older couple returning from their holidays, who admitted they had no idea their city was hosting a big European final.
In fairness, it has not felt much like a European final. This is 16th against 17th in the Premier League, a battle of two sides who have won one of their past 10 league games. As such, it has been regarded as an indictment of the inequitable distribution of resources in the modern world and something from a Victorian freak show, simultaneously an English boot grinding its studs forever into the face of Europe and a bout between a blind bear and a pair of three-legged badgers. None of which is entirely unfair, and yet it is a big European final, as the mass migration of excited fans attests.
That a final could comprise two such struggling teams is undeniably funny, but the game matters. For Tottenham, this could be a first trophy since 2008 and a first European trophy since 1984; for
United
, it could, inexplicably, be a third piece of silverware in successive seasons, and a seventh European trophy. Neither side will need reminding that their ostensibly more successful local rivals have won nothing this season.
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Almost more importantly, in the remorselessly capitalistic environment of the modern game, victory on Wednesday would secure passage to next season's
Champions League
, with all the financial benefits that will bring. It could rival the Championship playoff final as the most valuable game in English football. The way potential qualification for the Champions League has been touted as a means of salvaging dismal seasons is itself indicative of the way football has been financialised.
A trophy may have meant the world for Crystal Palace on Saturday, but for at least some at United and Spurs (although not Ange Postecoglou, as he was determined to point out), the Europa League feels like a means to a more lucrative end; winning silverware to generate the revenue that will allow them to generate more revenue. The game, as Danny Blanchflower nearly said, is about glory; it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and creating sustainable revenue streams for the future.
Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim's problems in defence are not as acute as first feared, with Leny Yoro and Diogo Dalot back in training. Photograph: Pierre-When Postecoglou arrived at Tottenham, he seemed a natural fit. His attitude to the game had been shaped by Ferenc Puskás, who coached him at South Melbourne, and there was a stylistic congruence between Arthur Rowe's Tottenham of the early 1950s, which established the push-and-run style, and the ethos of Hungarian football in the same period.
For all Postecoglou's cussed insistence that the way he plays is the way he plays, Spurs' best performances this season have been in away games when they have played in a style that would not be described as Angeball. When they beat Manchester City 4-0 at the Etihad, it was by playing on the counter and controlling the game in the second half. The Europa League wins at Eintracht Frankfurt and Bodø-Glimt were almost like tactical plans devised by José Mourinho, stifling their opponents and assuming superior quality or physicality would tell in the end.
Which presents Postecoglou with a conundrum. Tottenham have beaten United three times this season: twice with classic Angeball and once in a grim scrap when neither side played remotely well. Does he go with what worked at Old Trafford in the league and at home in the Carabao Cup or does he go with what has worked in Europe and opt for something more cautious?
He may not have much option. Spurs do not have the natural advantage they had over Frankfurt and Bodø-Glimt, but neither are they likely to have their three most creative midfielders with James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski out and Lucas Bergvall a significant doubt. That probably means Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur sitting with Pape Matar Sarr driving forward.
It had looked as though Postecoglou's team without a midfield would be facing Ruben Amorim's team without a defence, although with Leny Yoro and Diogo Dalot back in training the injury situation at United is not as acute as it had appeared.
If there is an explanation for the disparity in United's European and domestic form this season, it is probably that the lower pace of the Europa League allows players such as Casemiro and Harry Maguire to play under less immediate physical pressure. The dilemma for Postecoglou, then, is how to press them without losing the defensive structure that saw Spurs through the past two rounds.
Despite all the noise around it, the talk of finals of the undeserving and the economic rewards on offer, this is, almost despite itself, a big final. Somebody will win a trophy and whatever else that means, it will be celebrated on the night and go down in posterity. Football is made of this. – Guardian