Cartilage Free Captain

It is a state of celebration for 17th-placed Tottenham Hotspur, and not because the club enters the final day safe from relegation. No, this is Europa League champion Spurs, headed to next season’s Champions League with plenty to build upon despite a historically bad Premier League performance. Much of this season felt like a disaster, but the history books will remember this 2024/25 Tottenham side as title winners.

That makes Sunday’s finale in North London nothing short of a celebration. Brighton & Hove Albion might be playing for an outside chance at the Conference League, but the hosts are just here for a good time. From the joys of Bilbao to the parade on Friday, it is hard to imagine many Tottenham players care too much about Sunday — still wild to realize we are here.

Tottenham Hotspur (17th, 38pts) vs. Brighton & Hove Albion (8th, 58pts)

Date: Sunday, May 25

Time: 11:00 am ET, 4:00 pm UK

Location: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London

TV: Peacock (US)

Brighton should finish eighth, which is up from last season, but on par with the prior finishes of sixth and ninth. It does feel like it would be a bit of a disappointment to miss out on Europe though, given the sheer number of English teams headed into the various competitions next year (again: wooooooo) and the fairly open competition near the top of the table.

The reverse fixture was one of the most frustrating in a year of frustrations for Spurs. Brennan Johnson and James Maddison gave Tottenham a 2-0 lead at the Amex in October, but three goals in the first 20 minutes of the second half completely flipped the scoreline, with the home side taking the points. The wheels had not fully come off yet, but that collapse was a big omen of the rest of the season ahead.

Finale fun

While that defeat was representative of Spurs’ catastrophe in the league, none of that matters now. With nothing pointwise to play for, Sunday can be a carefree capper on a strange year, now full of joy and elated supporters. It could be the final time someone like Cristian Romero or Richalison puts on the kit — or Ange Postecoglou is on the touchline? — though most goodbyes this summer are unlikely to be huge emotional hitters.

Thanks for riding along with us through 20-plus losses this year across all competitions. It was painful, exhausting, and potentially worst of all, numbing, for much of the season, but it all was worth it in the end. Tottenham has a ton of work to figure out this summer, especially with Champions League on the schedule next year, but at least everything is moving in the right direction. Talk to you ahead of the Super Cup!

There are a lot of reasons why Tottenham Hotspur, despite a wretched Premier League campaign, roared back to win the Europa League this season. But one of the main reasons was Spurs’ first choice defensive back line, specifically the play of Micky van de Ven and Spurs vice captain Cuti Romero. It doesn’t take much digging to find statistics that clearly show Tottenham were a much better team when one or both of them were in the starting lineup.

And while Van de Ven made a spectacular leaping goal-line save to preserve Spurs’ 1-0 win in Bilbao on Wednesday night, Cuti Romero was, to use a Ray Hudson line, “magesterial.” We weren’t the only ones who noticed — UEFA did too. The day after Spurs lifted their first trophy in 17 years and first European trophy in 41 years, Romero was named Europa League Player of the Season.

I could dig up some stats that show you how good he’s been in the Europa League this season, but I won’t — we all know how good he is and what he brings to this Spurs team. He’s one of the best central defenders in world football and we’re incredibly fortunate to have him. This award is fully deserved.

We’ll probably have to endure a summer of annoying transfer news about how Cuti is linked away from the club, likely to any number of La Liga teams. But for now, let’s just enjoy him and his play. And maybe, in honor of Cuti necking straight from a bottle of fernet branca on the open-top bus this afternoon, pour yourself a tipple of amaro and give him the rowdiest of toasts. Salud, Cuti!

I missed a lot of Tottenham Hotspur’s parade today due to a work function. I was able to catch some of it near the end, and I’ll watch all the content I can at a later date. But that just made it so much more fun to make this post — a gallery of some of the best photos in the Getty database of the Tottenham victory parade in North London. Two open-topped busses, a cheering crowd, and a whole lot of extremely drunk professional footballers made for what looked like a pretty fantastic time.

For those of you that were there, I’d love it if you’d share your stories and experiences from the stadium and parade route today. What did you notice? Who was the worst dancer? Who had the most bonkers choice of drink and why was it Cuti Romero?

Spurs don’t get to do this very often, and that’s why this was so much fun. My guess is the Champions League victory parade next season will blow this one out of the water!

COYS!

Did you hear? Tottenham Hotspur are European champions after defeating Manchester United 1-0 in Bilbao in the final of the Europa League on Wednesday!

You might have read about it here. It was a whole thing.

So the Spurs players are back in London and as previously reported the club will be having a celebratory parade down the Tottenham High Road and around the stadium TODAY. The parade will begin at 12:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. BST as the club leaves Edmonton Green, and progressing towards the stadium. I don’t know what all it will involve, but almost certainly an open-topped bus, a lot of fans celebrating, and spectacular scenes of jubilation. What it hopefully won’t include is someone like James Maddison or Yves Bissouma accidentally dropping the Europa League trophy off the side of the bus.

I can’t remember the last time Tottenham Hotspur had a parade. I don’t think it happened in 2009 after the League Cup. Maybe some old-timer in here can share in the comments.

If you’d like to watch, the parade and celebrations will be streamed on SpursPLAY, Tottenham’s in-house premium video service, as well as on YouTube. There will also be a live blog on Spurs’ website. The live link isn’t up yet, but I’ll see about possibly embedding it in this article so people can watch the celebrations direct from Carty Free (and hopefully before I go to my two hour lunchtime meeting today, gaah).

Hello, hoddlers.

I wish I could bring you a sensible hoddle today.

Alas, I cannot. I spent all day Wednesday watching Spurs. And all day Thursday ‘celebrating

I love you all.

And I hope you continue your celebrations today.

WE ARE CHAMPIONS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

COME ON YOU SPURS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a parade. Your HIC will be watching.

COYS

Fitzie’s track of the day: Can You Get to That, by Funkadelic

And now for your links:

You are the links. I love you all. Fitzie will have a proper hoddle on monday for your hoddle. please excuse the lack of links whilst your beloved HIC is celebrating

COME ON YOU SPURSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I’ve been a Tottenham Hotspur fan for 18 years. In 2008 I was nacent and unformed, a true baby COYS, when Juande Ramos took another deeply flawed Tottenham side to the League Cup title, and I will admit I had absolutely no inkling of its significance at the time it happened. Oh, Spurs won something? Neat! Guess I picked a good team.

Flash forward 17 years later and I was sitting in my house, watching Son Heung-Min lift a trophy in Bilbao for what was the first time since then and the first European title since 1984’s win over Anderlecht. I had tears in my eyes. It was cathartic. It was glorious. It was the best day of my fandom.

And it means everything, not just to Spurs supporters, but to the club itself.

Tottenham has always been the club of losers, the almosts, the we’ll-get-’em-next-seasons, the put-the-pressure-ons. Spurs bootstrapped their way under Daniel Levy and ENIC from a mid-table club that occasionally won a domestic cup to one that regularly participated in the Champions League and occasionally challenged for Premier League titles. That’s laudable enough, but the one thing that has held the club back, the ultimate source of banter, was the long trophy drought. Never mind that many, many clubs have gone longer without winning silverware — Tottenham wanted to sit at the big boys table, and they wouldn’t let it happen because what have they won? They aren’t even owned by a billionaire! Well okay they are, but not THAT kind of billionaire. You don’t even go here!

Ange certainly noticed. For the past few weeks he’s been banging on in press conferences about how people, even Spurs fans, seem determined to qualify everything that happens to this club. Back in early April, responding to a perceived slight when Mathys Tel took a penalty (which he converted) ahead of Brennan Johnson in a win over Southampton, Ange summarized the frustration pretty succinctly.

“It’s incredible, it’s just literally turning gold into crap when it’s ­Tottenham. Seriously. If we’re 2-1 up tomorrow night and get a ­penalty in the last minute, I want the best penalty taker to take it. The one slight against this club is ­apparently it hasn’t been a winner. Well the winner’s mentality in the last minute of the game is to score a goal.

“...I just think we’re in that ­position that the good stuff we may do is going to be turned into a glass-half-full rhetoric and, from that perspective, I don’t think that can be a driver in what we want to do. The lads are really keen to bring success to the club. I just think there’s a real determination to take the opportunity that they’ve earned at this point.”

Now, they’ve done it. Tottenham club captain Son Heung-Min has lifted a European trophy, the club and the fans are celebrating, and the club can finally move on. It’s not hyperbole to say that yesterday was a club-defining event for Tottenham Hotspur. If the major knock on Spurs was that they hadn’t won anything... well now they have. It’s as though everyone has let out a collective breath they’ve been holding for nearly two decades. We no longer need to imagine Sisyphus happy.

Will that stop the banter? Of course it won’t. You could see the narrative shifting even before the match kicked off, with pundits and media outlets talking about how Spurs didn’t deserve to be in the Champions League if they won the tournament because the Europa League is somehow weakened by the new format, and their wretched league form somehow diminishes winning a major European cup competition. For years, these same pundits slagged Spurs off when they’d finish inside the top five because they hadn’t won anything. Now that they’ve won something, those same pundits immediately pivoted to “well, sure they won something but have you seen their league form?”

But that’s just salt. Tottenham’s league form can and will improve. There’s almost no way that it won’t! Postecoglou’s decision to laser-focus on the Europa League with his injured and thin squad to the detriment of Premier League position was certainly stressful for fans, but once Spurs eliminated relegation from the equation, it became something of a moot point. It looked like a stroke of genius the moment the final whistle blew and the Estadio San Mames exploded with a roar from those wearing blue and lilywhite.

One trophy doesn’t guarantee future success. But it is not at all difficult to imagine Tottenham Hotspur, now that they’ve gotten that nearly college-aged monkey off their back, can use yesterday as a springboard to better things. If before yesterday players might have viewed Spurs as a club where success goes to die, maybe now they’ll look at Ange Postecoglou’s project as something they want to be a part of. Maybe the idea that the team that finished 17th in the league will now play in the Champions League next season is appealing. Perhaps they look at Ange Postecoglou and Spurs in a completely new light.

There is, for sure, a huge amount of work to be done. The squad needs significant improvement and the floor needs to be raised if Spurs want to compete in four competitions, including the Champions League, next season. There will undoubtedly be more bumps in the road. Hell, Ange’s job still isn’t secure!

But those are all problems for tomorrow. Today, we celebrate.

Spurs have won a trophy. The future stretches out before us, full of endless possibility. My god, what else might happen now?

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Tottenham Hotspur Match Threads

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Manchester United: Europa League Final game time, live blog, and how to watch online

COYS

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This is it.

The match that defines this crazy, topsy-turvy season.

The match that could bring glory back to Tottenham Hotspur after so many years of heartache.

The match that could define the next few seasons.

The stakes could not be higher. This is the moment Ange Postecoglou’s men have been training for. Manchester United have their own aspirations of glory, and are all that stand in Spurs’ way.

Can our Lilywhites seize the opportunity in Bilbao?

Believe.

COYS!

Lineups

Live Blog

How to Watch

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Manchester United - Europa League Final

San Mamés Stadium, Bilbao, Spain

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Time: 3:00 p.m. ET, 8:00 p.m. UK

TV: CBS Sports Network, TNT Sports 1 (UK). Check international listings at livesoccertv.com

Streaming: Paramount+

Match thread rules

The match thread rules are the same as always. To any visitors coming here for the first time, welcome! We’re glad you’re here! Wipe your feet, mind the gap, and be sure to check out the other pages at this outstanding site. While you’re here, though, we have a few rules and regulations:

Absolutely no links to illegal streams. They’re bad and they get us in trouble. Violators will be warned or banned.

We have rules against “relentless negativity.” Nobody likes a Negative Nancy. Don’t knee-jerk and post outlandish or hurtful things just because you’re frustrated.

Along those lines, outright abuse of players or match officials is also not allowed. It’s fine to say “wow, that was a really bad call,” but it’s NOT okay to direct copious amounts of abuse in the direction of said official over a call you did not like.

Treat other people in the match thread the way you would want someone else to treat your grandmother. Be nice. This is a community of fans, not an un-moderated message board.

NO SPIDERS!

Finally, while we don’t have a rule against profanity, please try and keep the naughty words in check. Also, language that is sexist, racist, transphobic, or homophobic in nature will be swiftly deleted and you will be immediately banned. This is an open, supportive community.

Have fun, and COYS!

Surely I am not the only one who has simply ignored the struggles of Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League for basically all of 2025. Perhaps it started as numbness, but as the Europa League moved to the knockout rounds, and even the League Cup started to look promising, there was just not a lot that mattered in the league. 17th place is historically bad, but would 10th really mean anything different?

No, this season is trophy-or-bust for Spurs, and Wednesday’s Europa League final is the culmination of one of the strangest journeys in recent memory. This is heightened by Manchester United’s oddly similar struggles, as both English sides have put all of their eggs in the European basket. The stakes are incredibly high for both teams: Champions League next season or literally nothing, hope to build upon or impending disgrace, mockery and ridicule avoided or engulfed.

Even with these polarizing outcomes, I have not really thought about what a loss here would mean. I imagine the weight of 17th place and the disaster of the past nine months would finally come crashing down, making this summer pretty miserable. However, 90 minutes of glory would allow us to never even have to consider that possibility. Come On You Spurs!

Europa League Final: Tottenham Hotspur (17th) vs. Manchester United (16th)

Date: Wednesday, May 21

Time: 3:00 pm ET, 8:00 pm UK

Location: San Mames Stadium, Bilbao, Spain

TV: CBS Sports Network/Paramount+ (US), TNT Sports 1 (UK)

These teams now meet for the fourth time in this season, an event that is not unheard of but certainly an uncommon situation. Tottenham won convincingly at Old Trafford, crushing Erik ten Hag’s side 3-0, then won in North London in the League Cup, a chaotic 4-3 affair in United’s first month under Ruben Amorim. The third contest was a 1-0 victory for Spurs at home again in February, though both sides were less concerned about the Premier League by then.

How much can really be taken away from these contests? I guess it is better to be the team with three wins than with three losses, but much has changed over the course of the season, including the manager for United. Personnel has fluctuated a bunch for both; notably, Spurs started six different center backs across the three previous contests, though still recorded clean sheets in two of them. The past does not dictate the future, but it is clear which team has played better in these head-to-heads, at least.

The center of it all

While Ange Postecoglou will have his preferred back four available, his side is missing its three most creative players, which is unfortunately on brand for his tenure. As a result, Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur look destined to start in midfield, with no obvious source of creativity ahead of them. The options are plentiful, yet none inspire a ton of confidence – Wilson Odobert, Dominic Solanke, and Pape Sarr all have strengths, but none are perfect fits with those set to be around them.

An optimistic perspective would point to Spurs’ Europa League tactics over the past three rounds, with a willingness to concede possession and opting for pragmatic, defensive structure. United will enjoy holding the ball and trying to drive forward, primarily via Bruno Fernandes, but the attack’s production has been much better in chaotic passages of play vs. breaking down a well-positioned backline. Physicality leans heavily in Tottenham’s favor here, and if the midfield holds its ground, the opponents will struggle to score.

This is still a lot of pressure to accept. Since Bissouma and Bentancur are unexpected to offer much going forward, they absolutely must have stellar performances breaking up any oncoming play and muddying up the center of the pitch. Frustrating Fernandes and the United attack then capitalizing on the counter feels like a viable path to victory, but the margin for error is slim to play this way.

Sunshine and stars

Sometimes it takes a standout performance or two to bring the trophy home, and the obvious candidate for that sort of effort is Heung-min Son. Whether he starts or comes off the bench, Son looks healthy enough to contribute, and no player in this squad deserves this win more than this captain. It has been a tough season for Son, even without the injuries, but he offers the type of attacking instinct and sharpshooting that can snag a goal against the run of play.

On the other end of the pitch is Cristian Romero, a different type of star and leader. The center back has been inconsistent since winning the World Cup, but the time might be right for him to have a legendary performance on this sort of stage. United is going to force the defense to be engaged the entire match, but Romero has the type of talent to control the penalty area and stop real threats before they materialize. Should Spurs see this one out, I would expect him and Micky van de Ven to be a huge reason why.

The final piece to all of this is Postecoglou, of course. His second-season-trophy comments will become legendary with a win, and honestly he deserves all of the praise should he fulfill his own prophecy. There might never be a bigger singular match for a manager: lose and surely be sacked, but win and become an undeniable club legend. For all of his faults and failures, I trust that Postecoglou will make the right moves to give his team a great shot at finally ending this horrid trophy drought. The opportunity is there — go and seize it.

Ange Postecoglou gave his final press conference today, ahead of Wednesday’s Europa League final against Manchester United in Bilbao. Straight away, he answered a couple of questions that have been at the forefront of Tottenham Hotspur fans’ minds — what’s up with Pape Sarr, and might Lucas Bergvall actually play?

There was good news, and there was some disappointing news — Sarr appears to be fine and fit for the final, but despite some crazy rumors floating around social media, Lucas Bergvall will not feature despite being on the plane to Bilbao.

“[The team news is] Pretty much the same as last week. No, Lucas isn’t available. Same as we were as of last week.”

Spurs fans got overly excited this past week as training videos and photos emerged that appeared to show Bergvall training on grass and walking around without a boot. Bergvall was injured in the win over Bodø/Glimt in Norway, and the reporting at the time was that he’d be out for the remainder of the season. Well, that apparently still holds.

I think the majority of the copium was coming from the recent videos that showed Spurs players boarding the plane to Bilbao, and Lucas was seen walking more or less normally. That said, Radu Dragusin was also seen boarding the plane as well, and nobody’s expecting him to play. My guess is that the club extended the option to any player on the team who’s physically able to travel the opportunity to watch their team potentially lift their first trophy since 2009. (That, sadly, doesn’t appear to include Dejan Kulusevski, who recently had surgery on his knee.)

Tottenham have beaten Manchester United three times this season — a 3-0 win at Old Trafford, a 4-3 home win in the League Cup, and a 1-0 win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. But when asked, Postecoglou said that all those results go out the window, and they don’t really matter.

“It’s a final and you know that those kind of things aren’t important. If we had lost all three games your question would probably be ‘do you feel the pressure because you can’t beat them’, so… What I do know, and I’ve been in this situation a few times in my career in the big games, even your form going into it, even if you’ve got terrible form… it doesn’t matter.

”What matters is how the players cope with the occasion tomorrow. How they cope with understanding the importance of the game. For both clubs, you just don’t know how players are going to react to such a big occasion.

“My role in that is to try to prepare the players in the best possible way and also to prepare the players for Manchester United to be at their best, and that’s what you have to prepare for. If you prepare that way, and then you go out there and play to the potential that you can, you give yourself an opportunity.

“But I don’t think it really matters what you’ve done before any opposition when it comes to big games. Maybe in the league it’s a bit different. But in a final, everything gets decided on the day.”

The other big item discussed was, obviously, Ange’s future. There appears to be an assumption in the media at the moment that Postecoglou will leave Tottenham at the end of the season whether he wins the Europa League or not, despite the context of the season and that he still clearly has the support of his Spurs players. Ange was asked whether he has discussed his future with his team, and he replied that his focus has been entirely on tomorrow’s match.

“No, because I think again that would not be really help with what is before us right now. I’ve said to the lads from day one, nothing is guaranteed in life, nothing is guaranteed in sport. You just need to try and make sure you take every opportunity before you. That’s what I have done my whole career. I’ve been in this position before where the big game was the last game I managed. It’s not unusual territory for me. I have always navigated it pretty well because for me nothing is more important than my responsibility for this football club and its fans that tomorrow me, the players, our mind is only on one thing and that is to create something special.

“My future is assured, mate. I wouldn’t be the first person who changes job. We all change jobs. I am sure you’ve had more than one job. My future is assured, I have got a beautiful family, I’ve got a great life, I’ll keep on winning trophies until I finish – wherever that is. Don’t worry about my future, mate. My future is not intertwined with anything. My future is assured provided god-willing my health remains, my beautiful family is beside me, my friends, there is nothing wrong with my future, mate. Don’t stress. Sleep easy tonight. I’ll be OK.

“... I don’t think my job is done here. I really feel like we are building something and what a trophy does is hopefully accelerate that. So, I still think there is work to be done. It is quite obvious with the challenges we’ve had this year, which I think are well chronicled but there is some reasoning in the context of that, but also there has been some growth and I would like to see through. Whether that happens or not is not that important right now, but I don’t think far from it is this job finished. I certainly feel there is some growth there that we can take this club to where it needs to be.”

The Europa League final is tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. ET / 8:00 p.m. BST. It is televised on CBS Sports Network and streamed on Paramount+, and televised on TNT Sports 1 in the United Kingdom.

Exciting news! 18-year old Croatian central defender Luka Vuskovic, who will join Tottenham Hotspur this summer from Hajduk Split, has been rewarded for his excellent season with his first ever call-up to the Croatian national team! Vuskovic will be part of the squad that will play Gibraltar and Czechia in June.

Former Tottenham players Luka Modric and Ivan Perisic are also in the squad because they are ageless football liches who through dark magic are still good at football despite ostensibly dying sometime in the 19th century.

Vuskovic has spent the season, along with Spurs academy player Alfie Devine, at Belgian first division club Westerlo, and he’s been an absolute rock in the back line. He has seven goals this season as a central defender and has already emerged as one of the top young defenders in world football. And he’s coming to Spurs next season because Tottenham reached an agreement to sign him when he turns 18 two seasons ago.

I have no idea whether Vuskovic will play or not. You’d like to think he’d get some minutes against Gibraltar at least, but who knows — and honestly just getting a call-up to a major European national team at age 18 is significant and laudatory. And if he does play, it will give Spurs fans who don’t have a line on how to watch Belgian league football an opportunity to watch him in action.

Congrats, Luka!