I don't know what I expected from a European final between the 16th- and 17th-placed teams in the Premier League, but it wasn't that. Maybe I was fooled by the stature of Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United as two of the biggest clubs in England, or maybe I figured that a final would bring out the best of two sides just crawling through a doomed domestic season in hopes that summer cures all ills. Instead, the 2025 Europa League final was ass. Butt. Garbage. Nevertheless, at the end of 90 painful minutes, there was a light at the end of this sewage pipe of a match: For the first time since 2008, Tottenham won a trophy.
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou deserves a mountain of credit for something that reads as "cowardice" on paper, if you're cynical ("pragmatism," if you're feeling more generous). Spurs' biggest problem this season, aside from a crippling injury crisis, came in the form of its defense. Postecoglou's go-go-go attacking philosophy worked about as well as it should have, with Tottenham scoring 63 goals in the Premier League through 37 games, good for a tie in sixth place. But on the other end of the pitch, his side simply let goals in like that was the objective: 61 in those 37 games, good for fifth-worst.
For this one-off final, against a team with a futile attack—United has scored a measly 42 league goals, good for 16th ahead of just the three relegated teams and Everton—Postecoglou instead did his best José Mourinho impression and set up Tottenham to block all avenues to the goal, forcing United into hopeful crosses or speculative shots from distance. United obliged, and that's the main reason this game was so poor to watch, as the Red Devils could not get into any form of rhythm inside Tottenham's defensive third. Despite having 74 percent of the possession, and taking 16 shots, United never truly felt like it would score, save for a couple of plays that required on-point Tottenham saves. The xG stats tell the story rather well: Despite out-shooting Tottenham 16 to 3, United lost the xG battle, 0.99-0.98. That's not a big gap, of course, but given the shooting discrepancy and the fact that Tottenham tallied up a whopping 0.00 after halftime, it's bleak.
So what did go right to allow Tottenham to win this long-awaited trophy and, perhaps and maybe only if he wants it, save Postecoglou's job? Honestly, not much but a chaotic bit of action that just happened to go Spurs' way. In the 42nd minute, Pape Matar Sarr crossed the ball into Brennan Johnson near goal. The ball took an awkward bounce right before it got to the Welsh forward, and though he made contact with his right foot, the ball went backwards and hit Luke Shaw in the arm. The ricochet from that looked to be going out, but Johnson just barely got a touch as he was falling away from the ball, and that tiniest deflection—so small that I had to watch the goal about 10 times to make sure it wasn't an own goal—directed the ball past André Onana and into the corner of the goal. It wasn't pretty, but it was the kind of goal this ugly match deserved:
Other than that, Tottenham was able to enact its out-of-character strategy to perfection. Despite showing little counter-attacking threat to keep United honest—it was frankly a little sad watching Heung-min Son try to counter after his 67th minute introduction; coming off of a missed month due to a foot injury, he was clearly unfit and had none of his (former?) trademark burst—Tottenham still held off wave after wave of ineffectual passing from a team needing an equalizer to save not just this match and competition, but maybe its whole season.
Even when things went poorly for Tottenham's defense, someone stepped up to provide the difference. The most notable moment of the match, by far, came in the 68th minute, courtesy of Dutch defender Micky van de Ven. Off of a United set piece, Spurs goalie Guglielmo Vicario came out to collect the ball but ran into his own player, Dominic Solanke, which allowed Rasmus Hojlund to head the ball towards goal. Luckily for Vicario and Tottenham, Van de Ven had spotted the open goal when Vicario came out and he retreated to the goal line, where he was in perfect position to throw his body into the air and, somehow, keep the ball from going in.
For all of the passive play on Wednesday, and for how much this felt like a match between two teams in over their collective heads, Van de Ven's clearance is the type of trophy-winning play that Tottenham has failed to deliver for nearly two decades. It felt more likely that the ball would somehow hit off of Van de Ven's hand, like it did for poor Moussa Sissoko in the 2019 Champions League final, than it was for him to make that acrobatic clearance just inches from the line. Similarly, United came to some semblance of life in stoppage time, and forced a great save from Vicario off of a Luke Shaw header in the 97th minute, a save that could have just as easily been too slow.
(I had a vision, in that moment, of extra time between these two teams, and almost cried. Whether due to the pain of having to watch 30 more minutes of this, or the delirium of how stupid this match could get, I'm not sure, but the tears were ready to go.)
Instead, though, this was Tottenham's evening in Bilbao, a catapult into an unlikely, and mostly undeserved, spot in the Champions League next year, with the huge financial windfall that comes with it. The future is still murky. Postecoglou has been on the hottest seat in England for most of this horrid season. Does the club fire the manager who finally brought them to the promised land? Does Postecoglou himself opt to leave, mission accomplished banner fluttering in the wind? Or do they run this back for another season, in hopes that the injuries don't hammer Tottenham as hard next year, and that this embarrassing domestic campaign becomes just a blip in a long and storied tenure together?
United also has questions at the helm. Ruben Amorim hasn't had a preseason with the side, coming in as he did in November, replacing Erik ten Hag after United inexplicably kept him on through the summer. Amorim's three-defender system hasn't worked at all, but maybe with a full summer transfer window and preseason, it could. I have no idea, and neither does anyone at United, so this will have to be a leap of faith for England's (at least momentarily) fallen giant. For his part, Amorim told United legend Peter Schmeichel before the match that, no matter the result, he expected to be in charge next season. Whether he'll get the chance after this performance will be decided in the coming weeks.
These are all questions that can be put aside for now, though, because even in a match of this turgid pace and non-existent quality, Tottenham achieved something it hadn't since before Barack Obama was President, and that's worth celebrating. Thanks to Van de Ven, and Vicario, and Johnson, and also to Postecoglou, what has been a nightmare turned into a dream, the kind fans of the club might have traded a season of ineptitude in the Premier League in order to achieve. Son cried, and he lifted the trophy, and Tottenham Hotspur, long-time bottlers and also-rans, a club that once finished third in a two-team race, now has the Europa League trophy to call its own. And if it was a slog of historic non-quality that got them there, so what? You can always polish silver after the fact.
