The deadline for submitting names for the first stage of the 2025-26 Champions League squad was last night, and after what felt like an interminable delay, UEFA has posted the rosters on its website. Before we go too deep into what it means, here’s Tottenham’s roster for UCL in List A.
Keepers
Guglielmo Vicario
Antonin Kinsky
Brandon Austin
Defenders
Kevin Danso
Destiny Udogie
Cristian Romero
Pedro Porro
Djed Spence
Ben Davies
Micky van de Ven
Midfielders
Joao Palhinha
Xavi Simons
Archie Gray
Lucas Bergvall
Mohammed Kudus
Brennan Johnson
Wilson Odobert
Pape Sarr
Rodrigo Bentancur
Forwards
Richarlison
Dominic Solanke
Randal Kolo Muani
So that’s 22 players, which is about what we expected considering Spurs are still not able to max out its squad due to its (current) lack of club trained players. It means Spurs definitely had to leave players out of its squad, meaning they’ll be available to play in cups and Premier League matches, but will not play Champions League until at least January.
Most of these make sense. Dragusin, Maddison and Kulusevski are all injured — Radu is supposed to be back in training sometime during the international break but it’s unclear whether he’ll be up to speed or not in time to make him a candidate for inclusion. Kota Takai is also not surprising — he was a £5m signing who is still adapting to life in London and who also has been dealing with plantar fasciitis, which can be notably tricky to recover from. Bissouma is injured, yes, but is also kinda in the doghouse with Thomas Frank and there’s still a chance he could be transferred to a club in Turkey before the SuperLig transfer window closes.
Which leaves Mathys Tel, and I’m not sure what to think about him. He spent the year on loan last season and was purchased outright for £30m this summer, but Frank seemingly doesn’t think he’s worth of inclusion on the squad. And with the restrictions the way they are, it’s a bit hard to make an argument he deserves to be in there ahead of anyone else, apart from maybe Wilson Odobert. Including Tel means Spurs would likely sacrifice a defender, and that’s a tough sell when the defense is already short-handed.
The other thing we can glean about this list is that, by virtue of his inclusion, Spurs’ medical staff doesn’t think that Dominic Solanke will be out injured for long. If his ankle was a long-term one that required surgery, I’d think he’d be left out entirely and Tel would be in there as his replacement.
So my guess is the choice more or less came down to Odobert or Tel. That’s harsh on Mathys, but also if the rumors about Spurs attempting to sign Malick Fofana are accurate, one or both of Tel and Odobert were going to have developmental years this season. I guess it’s Mathys’ turn, and hopefully it means he’ll be getting plenty of minutes against Doncaster and Wolves when the international break is over.