Brennan Johnson scored the only goal of the game<\/a> with one of the scrappiest strikes you’re ever likely to see in a major European final.<\/p>\nA cross came in from the left and missed the front post before hitting Luke Shaw and heading towards goal.<\/p>\n
Johnson then barely got a touch as the ball squeezed past Andre Onana to give Spurs the lead three minutes before the break.<\/p>\n
Read more Europa League final<\/p>\n
United dominated possession after the break but failed to create many chances.<\/p>\n
Mickey van der Ven made an acrobatic clearance from the line after a Rasmus Hojlund header before Guglielmo made a smart save from Luke Shaw late on.<\/p>\n
Will Man Utd be in Europe next season?<\/p>\n
The short answer is NO – despite up to TEN teams possibly playing in European competition next season.<\/p>\n
But after losing the Europa League final Ruben Amorim’s side will NOT be one of them.<\/p>\n
That’s because the Red Devils will end the Premier League season well out of the European places.<\/p>\n
They currently sit 16th.<\/p>\n
In 2025-26 there were set to be five English teams in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
That’s one more than the usual four, because of Premier League clubs’ performance in Europe this season has earned them a bonus spot.<\/p>\n
Tottenham are now also in the competition after their epic win, making it a whopping SIX sides playing at world football’s top table. <\/p>\n
There are also two spots for English clubs in the Europa League – one is traditionally given to the team finishing fifth, but this season that is a Champions League place.<\/p>\n
The other Europa League spot has gone to Crystal Palace after they won the FA Cup against Man City last week.<\/p>\n
Complicating factors are Chelsea and Newcastle.<\/p>\n
The Toon have already qualified for the Europa Conference League having won the EFL Cup earlier this season, while the Blues are in the Conference League final next week.<\/p>\n
With both of those team still able to qualify for the Champions League based on final league position, the likes of Brighton and Brentford still have a chance of Europe.<\/p>\n
But it won’t be Man Utd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANCHESTER UNITED suffered a tough defeat in Bilbao as Tottenham Hotspur ended their 17-year wait for a trophy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1612,2000,299,5187,14155,98,99,189,41434,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-120953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-ange-postecoglou","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-explainers","13":"tag-manchester-united","14":"tag-ruben-amorim","15":"tag-section-sportfootball","16":"tag-section-sportfootballeuropa-league","17":"tag-tottenham-hotspur"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114548225101921060","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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