Tottenham Hotspur qualify for 2025/26 UEFA Champions League

Bilbao (Spain), May 22 (IANS) Tottenham Hotspur have qualified for the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League after winning the UEFA Europa League final 1-0 in Bilbao with a goal by Brennan Johnson in the 42nd minute.

With Spurs set to finish in the bottom half of the Premier League, there will therefore be six English teams in the 2025/26 league phase for the Champions League. They will be joined by the teams who finish in the top five of this season's Premier League

It means the Premier League will have SIX clubs in the Champions League next season, the first time any league has had more than five clubs in Europe's leading competition in the same campaign.

Liverpool and Arsenal have already secured a top-five place, but the battle for the remaining three spots is going to Sunday's final day.

There are just three points between third-placed Manchester City and Nottingham Forest, in seventh, meaning five teams go into the final day with hopes of clinching one of the three remaining top-five spots. Newcastle United, Chelsea and Aston Villa are the other sides in contention.

Spur’s 17-year wait for silverware was finally over with the Europa League title and its their first European title in 41 years. For the fourth time this season, they beat Manchester United and turned the bleakest of campaigns into a night of glittering European triumph.

Some of the heroes of that famous night against Anderlecht in 1984 watched on from the stands at San Mames Stadium as Ange Postecoglou's men became legends in their own right, putting to one side a disappointing domestic season to complete a fantastic European campaign on the highest of highs.

Overall, this is Spurs' fourth European trophy - three UEFA Cup/Europa Leagues (1972, 1984, 2025), plus the European Cup Winners' Cup (1963).

--IANS

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