Cristian Romero has revealed that when Tottenham decided to shift their full focus to the Europa League amid a poor Premier League campaign.
Of course, the 2024/25 season for Tottenham Hotspur was a mixed bag, as Spurs were horrendous domestically but impressive on the continental stage.
Twenty-two defeats in a single Premier League season are unheard of in Tottenham’s history. A negative goal difference, just 38 points and a 17th-place finish in the English top flight, all in the same campaign, is unfamiliar territory for Spurs.
Yet, ironically, in the same season, Tottenham ended their 17-year wait for silverware after they won the Europa League for the third time in their history and the first time in over four decades.
Cristian Romero reveals when Tottenham shifted focus to Europa League
Still, some could argue that the 2024/25 season was the most Spurs-type of campaign, as the Lilywhites managed to attach a bit of pain before the sweet ending.
The club’s vice-captain, Cristian Romero, has now opened up on a key decision that Tottenham had to make towards the tail end of the previous campaign – a decision that helped Spurs end the season on a high.
As Tottenham juggled both the Premier League and the Europa League for most of last season, the Argentine centre-back has now revealed that it was in April during the Frankfurt matchup in the quarter-final of the Europa League that the club decided to shift its focus to their European commitments.
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He told Spursplay: “I think that, with regard to the Frankfurt game, we knew that the only competition that we could still win was the Europa League. So our focus was on the Europa League.”
Spurs’ poor domestic form justified their Europa League shift
Of course, at the point of the season when Tottenham faced Frankfurt back in April, the Lilywhites had little to play for in the Premier League, as they were 17th in the league table, 31 points off fourth-placed Chelsea.
For a club that had the objective to make it to the Champions League, being in 17th place with eight games to go was nothing but a disaster.
Indeed, the decision to turn most of their attention to the Europa League was the right one, as Spurs ended up winning the entire competition after beating Manchester United 1-0.