Both Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur continued to live in their own parallel worlds as both English teams reached the Europa League final on Thursday.
The pair will meet in Bilbao, Spain, on May 21 in the hope of salvaging their seasons, with both suffering staggeringly bad form in the Premier league.
Tottenham currently sits 16th in the table having lost 19 times this season, while Manchester United is in 15th having won just four league games since the turn of the year.
Europe, then, has provided sanctuary for the otherwise beleaguered clubs and offers both a chance to lift the Champions League trophy next year – the winner of the Europa League qualifies for the continent’s top club competition.
Along with the prestige of playing in the Champions League, participating in next year’s tournament will also provide both clubs with a big financial boost and help attract the world’s best players to help bolster their squads.
It’s a prize, then, that neither can afford to miss out on.
In truth, both teams breezed into the final having each won their semifinal first legs last week, meaning the return fixtures on Thursday were relatively routine.
Manchester United, which held a 3-0 lead, did initially go behind at Old Trafford through Mikel Jauregizar’s wonderful strike but recovered well to win 4-1 on the night, courtesy of goals from Casemiro, Rasmus Højlund and a brace from the impressive Mason Mount.
“It’s a different competition and the opponents are different, the physicality I think is important. We are more comfortable in this kind of game,” Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim told reporters after the game, trying to explain why his team’s form is so much better in the Europa League.
“I do think the games are completely different … when we arrived at the beginning in our club, I think it was more the physicality and the speed of the game, so we were more comfortable to play in the Europa League.”
Meanwhile, Tottenham traveled to the Arctic Circle to play Norweigan side Bodø/Glimt, looking to protect its 3-1 first-leg lead.
It dealt with the unusual surroundings well on Thursday to win 2-0 on the night, with goals from Dominic Solanke and Pedro Porro ensuring safe passage to the final.
For Spurs, there is the added pressure of winning the club’s first trophy since 2008 and first continental silverware since the 1983-84 season. The north London club has struggled to shake off the reputation of being “nearly good enough” over the last decade and has another chance to right that wrong in the final.
Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou will also want to back up his claim that he always wins a trophy in the second season after joining a new club.
“It’s exciting. It’s brilliant. We know, irrespective of which club you’re at, you don’t get these opportunities too often, so you want to make the most of them,” Postecoglou said to reporters after Thursday’s win.
“We’ve a couple of weeks to prepare for it, it should be a great game, and obviously, it gives our supporters some hope now that we can do something special this year.”
Before this tournament kicked off, many had predicted both teams would have made the final given their superiority over most of the other teams in Europe’s second tier competition.
But given how unfathomably poor their league forms have been, it’s quite incredible that teams positioned so low in the Premier League table are competing in a European final.
The hope, for both sets of players, is that victory in Bilbao can be the ultimate distraction from their misgivings in the league, and give their respective fans something to cheer about in an otherwise chastening season.
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