It should have been an own goal.
Brennan Johnson’s scuffed, mis-timed, bobbly, ricocheted two-yarder deserved to have ‘OG’ splattered all over it.
Sometimes, a wonderful goal will be described by a commentator as “good enough to win any football match”, or perhaps even “a strike fit to grace a World Cup final”.
In this particular case, Johnson’s ugly goal was utterly befitting of the 2024-25 Europa League final.
This is not an article for fans of Tottenham Hotspur.
Hey, look, it is utterly irrelevant to you how you won it. You just won it. You don’t need The Athletic to tell you that winning is all that matters. It is your turn to laugh now — you’re fourth-bottom of the Premier League but will play in next season’s Champions League.
This is also not an article for supporters of Manchester United.
There will be a lot of shameful words written here about how embarrassingly inept your team are.
No, this is for the neutrals with no skin in the game who had to endure the Wish version of a Europa League final on Wednesday.
With this being statistically the ‘worst’ European final of all time, a meeting of the two teams sitting 16th and 17th in the Premier League, directly above the three relegated sides, we all knew this would go one of two ways.
It would either be a slapstick classic, with defenders falling over themselves to present goalscoring opportunities to the opposition and a 3-3 thriller would ensue, or it would just be a very, very bad football match.
Sadly, it was the latter.
The Athletic‘s match dashboard, demonstrating how much Spurs sat back as United circulated possession
The tension of the occasion, with both teams having so much to lose, undoubtedly played its part. The stakes were high — glory for the winners and a dreadful season at least ends with a very notable trophy and a Champions League place, ignominy for the losers; a worst season in living memory, no solace, no silver lining, just humiliation.
However, tension aside, these two teams have repeatedly proven themselves to be not very good at playing football. In Europe? Yep, very good and genuinely competent. In United’s case, unbeaten. In Spurs’ case, surprisingly resolute.
But in the Premier League? With four home wins from 23 combined matches since December 1? And half of those were against rock-bottom Southampton? Hapless. Laughing stocks. What with weakened teams and consistently pathetic performances, their league form on both their parts has been pathetic enough to be termed a dereliction of duty.
This (also sadly) was a throwback Premier League game, not a modern European one. It was fast, it was furious, it was dumb.
There was a lot of trying to win free kicks, a lot of hitting long balls and a lot of frantic running in various directions, like kids chasing a flimsy, corner-shop ball around a playground, but very little sense of what anyone’s purpose was.
To borrow a line written about then England captain Billy Wright struggling to cope with the genius of Ferenc Puskas when Hungary walloped the English at Wembley back in 1953, these players resembled firemen running to the wrong fire.
Richarlison celebrates Tottenham’s success (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
If you saw the match, we’ll keep this recap mercifully brief.
If you didn’t: Spurs did some high pressing, were a threat from set pieces, scored the aforementioned dreadful goal and then sat in their penalty area for the whole second half (during which they created an expected goals tally of 0.00). Their time-wasting was shameless. At one point, Richarlison won the ball, sprinted upfield on a promising counter with three team-mates for company, but instead dived in a fruitless attempt to win a free kick and waste some time. This was in the 56th minute of the 90.
Watching plucky Spurs hold on with 11 men in their own third was reminiscent of what non-League Tamworth did to them in the FA Cup in January, except Tamworth actually created chances that day.
As for United, they passed sideways a lot, then went backwards, then slowed it down a bit, then chucked it into the Tottenham box. They plonked 32 crosses into the penalty area and played 49 long balls (for their part, Spurs played 40 long balls).
The game was United’s if they were good enough to take it. They had 73 per cent of the possession, 16 shots to Spurs’ three, 431 completed passes to Spurs’ 115. But they were incapable. Theirs is almost a £600million ($806m) net spend over the past five years, but aside from Bruno Fernandes and the excellent Amad, just… nothing. Rasmus Hojlund leading the line, with three goals in his last 33 appearances. Anaemic.
They were given the opportunity of having steak for dinner and attempted to eat it with a ladle and a cheese grater.
The ending was frantic and exciting — an ongoing spat between opposing defenders Harry Maguire and Cristiano Romero was fun — but that’s about it.
Maguire departs the scene at the end (David Ramos/Getty Images)
You can imagine a curious Frenchman, Spaniard or Italian who maybe doesn’t see much English football tuning in to watch two of the great European names of the past, hoping to see a classic encounter. Instead, they were given more fuel to add to the England-shaming lexicon: you English, with your bland cuisine, your Brexit, your grey weather and your Tottenham vs Manchester United Europa League final.
The Bilbao locals call the San Mames stadium ‘the cathedral’. This was like loutish English tourists turning up unannounced and urinating in the holy water.
Look, there was some brilliance here. Micky van de Ven’s acrobatic goal-line clearance will go down in Spurs folklore. Guglielmo Vicario’s save from Luke Shaw’s late header was vital.
But there was also the time Dominic Solanke hoofed the ball clear from near his own box and then, with no one dressed like him running upfield, was forced to chase his clearance. That was in the 60th minute.
And yet you almost couldn’t take your eyes off it, like watching an addictive but very low-quality TV series and having to reluctantly stick with it until the bitter end to find out how the story ends. So yeah, Lost, basically.
United coach Ruben Amorim struggles to comprehend what he is witnessing (Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
With the clock ticking down, as Maguire went up front for United and Kevin Danso replaced Johnson to make it five-at-the-back for Ange Postecoglou’s fearless band of enterprising adventurers, the BBC Radio 5 Live commentator (come on, this game was bad enough without anyone in the UK audience subjecting themselves to TNT Sports’ TV coverage) stated that Spurs had only completed 20 passes in the previous 20 minutes.
But hey, did it matter for them? Absolutely not. They won’t be enjoying their first trophy in 17 years any less because of the fact Bradley Walsh and Chunkz could have entered the fray and the quality of this Soccer Aid-level match wouldn’t have taken a noticeable hit.
And you would need a heart of stone not to be happy for Son Heung-min finally winning a trophy at Spurs, or for the magnificent Van de Ven, or for young match-winner Johnson, or for those long-suffering fans, or even for Postecoglou.
Spurs’ head coach may have been steadfast and 100 per cent clear that he wouldn’t budge on his full-throttle, attack-minded principles before going full Tony Pulis to ensure he won his latest second-season trophy, but honestly, does your average football fan remember how Spurs won the 1984 UEFA Cup? Or the 2008 League Cup? Nope. Irrelevant.
Lads, it’s Tottenham. And they’ve won a major trophy. Good for them.
Postecoglou lifts the Europa League trophy (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
And so Postecoglou can somehow mic drop and stroll off into the sunset with his reputation not just intact, but enhanced. Year one, fifth place. Year two, trophy. F*** you, mate, etc.
Regrets, he’s had absolutely none. But then again… nope, absolutely none.
He did what he had to do. And saw it through (except when he completely changed his philosophical approach despite repeatedly and aggressively asserting that he would never sacrifice his principles).
He planned each charted course (carefully selecting utterly dreadful, weakened teams in the Premier League to keep his players fresh to win their Europa League ties).
And more, much more than this, he did it Ange’s way (sort of).
(Top photo: Getty Images)