“Big games come down to moments,” said Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou late on Wednesday night. “We were really efficient with what we did.” With those words, Postecoglou summed up Spurs’ UEFA Europa League final triumph in Bilbao – a narrow victory built on his players doing the right thing at the key moments.
As the following analysis will show, Spurs earned their first European trophy in 41 years – and third triumph overall in this competition – by getting a goal and then defending their lead with great determination and resilience.
The defensive masterclass we will come to shortly, but first that winning goal from Brennan Johnson. UEFA Technical Observer Steve Cooper highlighted a number of “dangerous crosses from quite wide and deep areas” by Spurs which caused uncertainty in the United defence, and this was the source of Johnson’s close-range winner after 42 minutes.
As the video above shows, Pape Sarr played a key role, first winning the ball in midfield and then delivering the cross from wide on the Spurs left. Johnson, the opposite winger attacking the near post, took full advantage to become the first man to score a final winner for Spurs since Jonathan Woodgate in the English League Cup in 2008.
To shift the focus to the impressive defensive work of Postecoglou’s side, the first clip above offers an example of Player of the Match Cristian Romero blocking off Rasmus Højlund in the box. “He dealt well with Manchester United’s direct play, he was very aggressive with the defensive line and won the first contacts,” said Cooper of the Spurs captain’s overall contribution.
“In the second half, as Tottenham got deeper and deeper, he showed real leadership. He constantly won duels, won the 1v1s. It was a well-rounded 90-minute performance in a game where mistakes in that area of the pitch would have been costly.”
When United did have chances, individual moments of brilliance kept Spurs’ lead intact. Clip two shows Micky van de Ven’s outstanding goal-line clearance to deny Højlund in the 68th minute.
From the 78th minute onwards, the backs-to-the-wall defending increased as substitute Kevin Danso joined Romero and Van de Ven in a back three. During that final spell, the trio had a 100% success rate with their defensive actions. And when they did not get to the ball, goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario came to the rescue with his save from Luke Shaw’s 97th-minute header, which is shown in clip three.
With that, Postecoglou’s men had their name on the trophy. Elaborating on his point about moments, the Spurs manager told TNT Sports: “I’ve always felt that knockout football is different from your league football. When you’re in that situation, it comes down really to good organisation, belief, having a good game plan and then moments [and] if you can minimise the moments the opposition have by having a really strong foundation. I always felt comfortable that if we got ahead, we could negate most of what Man United were going to throw at us.” And so it proved.
