21-05-2025
Nine reasons why Tottenham vs Manchester United was the worst cup final in history
All the build-up to the Europa League final touched on the oddness of the situation.
Two of Europe's non-form teams competing for its second-highest club honour. It was billed as a season-saver for each and as such a certain excitement began to creep in.
Perhaps chaos would ensue and we would see a left-field classic? Reader, we did not. A horrible season for Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United culminated in a woeful match between them. It was like watching England's European Championship team of 2024 playing England's European Championship team of 2024.
None of this matters in the slightest for Tottenham fans, who have a first trophy since the days when Teemu Tainio was a Premier League player. It was a tough watch for the rest of us though. Indeed it was hard to recall a worse final of a major competition.
The case for the prosecution:
Early disappointment
After the usual bloated build-up the game kicked off and immediately became scrappy, quickly giving way to the same word minus the 's'. There was the early blow of TNT Sport relegating Robbie Savage and Rio Ferdinand to the bench, which might have presented some struggles to viewers during the match but ultimately deprived us the inverse of their Athletic Bilbao comeback love-in.
There was also the dawning realisation of what we were watching, more evident with every niggling foul and aimless punt upfield. Not a rabble-rousing handbrake-off thrill-fest but 16th vs 17th in the Premier League. And not a particularly good Premier League.
The standard of passing
These days we are used to watching teams from League Two upwards channel Guardiola's Barcelona, pinging the ball about with supreme confidence. No sign of that here where even competence would have been a vast upgrade. For long periods neither side seemed able, or interested, in stringing more than three consecutive passes together. Tottenham ended the evening with just 115 successful passes, the lowest number in a European final since Opta began tracking the stat in 2009-10.
