Spurs beat the Norwegian team Bodø/Glimt in the semi-final of the Europa League. Bodø/Glimt’s wage bill is reported to be equivalent to about 1 percent of Tottenham’s. Even Athletic Bilbao, who United knocked out, reportedly assembled their team for about the same sum that United paid for their goalkeeper—and Athletic are a fairly big club in Spain. The European game has become so financially lopsided that the 16th and 17th best teams in England can quite easily swat aside some of the best of Europe’s other leagues. This is not, really, what the Europa League is meant to be for. The competition should offer an opportunity for rare success for the second tier of top-level European clubs, those not-quite-elite winning teams from smaller leagues or, from the bigger leagues, the teams that typically finish fifth, sixth or seventh. But, as it was this season, we had this meeting of hapless English giants.
The poor quality of both Spurs and United was perfectly evident last night, though Spurs deserved their win. The only goal was a farce. A decent ball from the left wing was whipped into the six-yard box, where Spurs’ Brennan Johnson and United’s Luke Shaw tangled and fell into each other. The ball hit one and then the other, catching a vicious spin off Shaw and heading goalward, with Johnson administering a micro-touch before it crossed the line. It was his goal, but easily could have been an own goal for Shaw. It was a confusing moment. It did not even provide the catharsis of the ball hitting the back of the net at force. I only knew it was a goal because the Spurs-supporting family in the pub beside me started losing their shit. It was a terrible goal in a terrible match between terrible teams. There’s poetry in there somewhere, if you’re willing to sift it out of the mediocrity.
The second half was tense, with the moment of highest quality coming from a desperate goal-line clearance from Spurs defender Micky van de Ven, who twatted the ball away in midair, after his keeper, Guglielmo Vicario, had messed up a simple catch and Rasmus Højlund was able to head towards an open goal. Van de Ven’s intervention kept his team in it, and, after several waves of low-quality United attacks, and seven or so minutes of stoppage time, the final whistle blew. Inexplicable glory for Spurs.
Even though Tottenham are hardly plucky underdogs, given their immense wealth, a little romance can still be found in this shitshow. Spurs are serial underachievers. Their lack of silverware in recent years has weighed heavily upon them, and they have long been the butt of many a joke, but all that failure has now been exorcised, even in a season as bad as this one. They’ve actually won something, and, to make it even sweeter, their bitter North London rivals Arsenal have not. Arsenal are objectively much, much better than Spurs at the moment, finishing second in the league (again) and reaching the semi-final of the Champions League. But whose fans will be happier at the end of the season this weekend? Arsenal are empty-handed and Tottenham are not. Football does retain its sense of humor, despite the odds.
Beyond the glory and the bragging rights, this result may actually set Spurs up well for the near future. Whether or not their manager Ange Postecoglou stays on in his role remains to be seen, but, regardless of who the manager is come next season, the team will play Champions League football, and that comes with some wild financial benefits. They will now attract better players during the transfer window, and, maybe, they’ll be able to pull their shit together.
United’s failure for this season, meanwhile, is complete. It’s difficult to see where they go from here. You’d presume they couldn’t possibly be this bad again next season, but it feels like people have been saying that for years now, and, sure enough, they duly proceed to decline and decline and decline. The appointment of Ruben Amorim, who replaced Erik ten Hag as head coach last November, has not remotely worked. Every manager needs time, but United have gotten worse under Amorim, a footballing ideologue who steadfastly refuses to alter his tactics despite abundant evidence they do not work for this team. How is this justifiable? When did the sport become led by zealous coaches so bound to their faith in a single system that they refuse to adapt to circumstance? That, surely, is just bad management? Even Postecoglou, himself often branded as an uncompromising attacking ideologue, has changed tact during the Europa League, becoming more defensive and, ultimately, winning because of it.
Amorim was appointed under the leadership of Jim Radcliffe, who purchased a quarter of Man United at the end of 2023 and has revealed himself to be utterly incompetent at running a football club. He has appointed a series of directors aptly termed “the politburo of bullshit” by Irish journalist Dion Fanning, and, between them, they have managed to piss away millions on poor signings and backroom staff appointments, while slashing the wider workforce and cutting employee benefits. Radcliffe’s sordid reign is, really, a fine demonstration of how contemporary capitalism really works.
This Europa League final summed up much of what is wrong with football today. The two teams made it that far, not on sporting merit as such, but through cold financial might. But, it also demonstrated what remains great about the sport. The Spurs-supporting family in the pub beside me absolutely lost their shit at the final whistle. The young kids who had never seen their team win a competition before didn’t really know what to do, so they resorted to jumping up and down on the spot, with their hands on their heads, sort of laugh-crying and looking blissfully confused. These are the moments that keep people coming back to this sport, despite how corrupted it has become. There is still beauty and joy to be found, even in a match as piss-poor as this one.
GET SPLINTER RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
The Truth Hurts
