For Tottenham Hotspur, Europa League glory is about more than just Champions League qualification

It may not have been the longest trophy drought in England, but Tottenham Hotspur’s 17-year wait for silverware was the most name-dropped one. The inability to collect winners’ medals has loomed large despite their strides over the better part of two decades, and there are many strides to speak of. Since Spurs won the EFL Cup in 2008, they played their first-ever UEFA Champions League season (2010-11), got as high as second place in the Premier League (2016-17), and reached the Champions League final (2019).

The narrative has been a clear one – those accomplishments may be important, but without a trophy, there’s an asterisk next to them. It would be hard to blame Spurs’ players, fans and manager for the moment of catharsis they experienced on Wednesday in Bilbao, when their well-documented trophy drought finally came to an end by beating Manchester United in the UEFA Europa League final. Take it from James Maddison, who was one of the marquee signings of Ange Postecoglou’s new-look Tottenham when he joined in the summer of 2023.

“When I joined Tottenham, you know what it’s like,” he said on CBS Sports’ broadcast after the final. “Everyone just goes, ‘He’s retired from winning any trophies’ and all this, and I said to my dad, I said to my best mate, ‘I’m going to lift silverware for Tottenham,’ and listen. I’m not trying to make this mad story, but I fully believed that I could come and we could create something that could.”

Few could reasonably argue that the match was entertaining or well-played, the imagery of a European final unable to disguise the fact that England’s 16th and 17th best teams were facing off against each other. Still, Spurs had their heroic moments, albeit in unexpected fashion for a team that generally prefers an attack-minded approach. Brennan Johnson’s game-winning goal felt like a gift from United’s wobbly defense more than anything else, while Spurs’ defense stole the show.

Micky van de Ven’s acrobatic goal line clearance was perhaps the single greatest moment of individual brilliance at the San Mames Stadium, while goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicaro’s save in the final moments of the game on Luke Shaw was the type of make-or-break moment that finals are made of. Richarlison, the oft-injured striker who actually earned a start on Wednesday, even put in an impressive defensive shift that will be remembered by the Spurs faithful for years to come.

The unexpected nature of their victory is perhaps appropriate for a Tottenham team that, for much of the season, offered reminders of how far they have slipped since the days of their second-place Premier League finish and run to the Champions League final. Sure, Spurs still have some world-class players on the roster – center backs van de Ven and Cristian Romero are both individually brilliant and a terrific pair, while captain Son Heung-min remains one of the best attackers of his generation. The easiest admission to make about this Spurs team, though, is that they are deeply flawed from a tactical perspective and had much work to do in the summer, with or without a spot in next season’s edition of the Champions League.

Wednesday’s Europa League triumph, as well as their European campaign as a whole, was also an example of one thing this version of Tottenham has consistently gotten right. Look no further than Postecoglou’s now-famous quote that he always wins trophies in his second year, a source of fodder that has served as a taunt. The banter of it all is hard to resist, especially now that Postecoglou was proved right, but his frankness was a breath of fresh air at Spurs, even if it was bold by his own admission.

“It’s been the toughest couple of years I’ve had in my career and I knew it going into it because I knew what I was getting into, you know?” Postecoglou said in an interview with CBS Sports after the match. “This football club’s had world-class managers and a lot better credentialed than I am and haven’t been able to get there, so I knew I had a massive challenge in front of me.”

The names that came before Postecoglou – like Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte – and those that came before Maddison – such as Harry Kane and Gareth Bale – made this group an unlikely contender for Europe’s top prize. Yet, there was an impressive fervor to change a narrative they inherited. Postecoglou’s particular résumé perhaps forced people to incorrectly underestimate him, since managers with a globe-trotting route and without European roots rarely accomplish feats such as these.

“When you talk about them records, a lot of the players haven’t been here that long, so it’s almost like an incentive to be the group to change that,” Maddison noted. “The gaffer, to be fair to him, since he come in, he always said – he pointed in our dressing room at the Spurs ground, they’ve got all the walls of the teams at Spurs that have won trophies and they’re all black and white and they’re all old and he’s always made a thing about saying, ‘Get on that wall. It’s about us getting on that wall.'”

Postecoglou has had to rely on a remarkable number of players along the way, with 33 players playing at least one game as Spurs managed an injury crisis of epic proportions. There were days they really felt like a rag-tag team, making it easy to underestimate them. This is where the manager’s greatest strength lies – he maintained a sense of togetherness that never really cracked. Unlike many top teams in seasons with a lot more wins than theirs, they appeared as a unit.

“We want to win for the gaffer, of course,” van de Ven told British GQ in an interview before the final. “Everyone knows he’s said he always wins things in his second year [at a club]. It’s a nice quote for him and it would make it even more beautiful if we can make it happen! He has been so positive the whole season and made sure that no one ever lets their head down even if we played a terrible game. We never had a feeling that he was giving up on us; he’s always kept pushing us. That’s why at the end of a tough season we still believe we will win.”

Sports have always been about a mix of the tangibles and intangibles and Postecoglou’s Spurs almost made up the deficit in the former with an abundance in the latter category. Few would advocate for that as a sustainable strategy, but for a team that has been defined by their inability to win trophies, that is of little concern. There’s a reason why Johnson said “I don’t care” about whether or not his game-winning goal should belong to him or should be classified as an own goal – in this particular moment, it truly does not matter.

Spurs’ Europa League win is the final example of the romance of sports in a season full of them, especially in England. Theirs was not the only trophy drought that ended – Newcastle United ended their 56-year wait for a title with the EFL Cup, while Crystal Palace won their first-ever trophy with the FA Cup on Saturday. Postecoglou’s unlikely journey from Australia to Europe is one such example, as is Tottenham’s perseverance despite a season full of trials and tribulations. There’s also the long-awaited reward for the team’s longtime steward, Son who ended his own trophy drought.

Son is an underdog story in his own right, emerging from a nation that is not considered a hub for soccer stars and charted his own path to the top levels of the game. He was also, wrongfully, in Kane’s shadow for much of his Spurs career, but if anyone truly embodies the club, it is him. He was just as crucial to Tottenham’s success nearly a decade ago as Kane was and stuck around long enough to become the captain. He has been just as deserving as anyone of an accolade to match his status as an elite talent, and his moment of catharsis is equally momentous. A successful season and a great season may be two different things, but even if Spurs were objectively poor over the course of the campaign, there is also something objectively terrific about a moment like this one.

“Let’s say I am a legend, why not,” he told TNT Sports. “Only today. In 17 years, no one has done it. Today is the day. Today I will say I am a legend of the club. Let’s enjoy it. It feels amazing, it is what I always dreamed for. It came true. I am the happiest man in the world.”