By The Telegraph (World News) | Created at 2024-09-26 17:45:31 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:24:59
3 days ago
Good evening and welcome to live coverage of Tottenham Hotspur’s opening Europa League match of the 2024-25 campaign against Qarabag, 10 times champions of Azerbaijan in the past 11 years. These two have met before, back in 2015-16, when Spurs won 3-1 at White Hart Lane and 1-0 in Baku, two of the six defeats English clubs have inflicted on the Horseman in the last decade. Since it’s the first game, we had better have a quick recap of the new Swiss model Europa League: each of the 36 qualifiers now has eight matches, six before Christmas, two in January, half home and away but against eight different opponents, two from each of four pots of seeds.
All sides are in one league and the top eight at the end of the stage go through to the last 16 while the teams between ninth and 24th then have another two-legged play-off to qualify for R16. That means to win the tournament, those on the ‘express’ route will play 15 games, those on the scenic route 17. To win a quadruple, therefore, an English club would have to play a minimum of 64 matches, which is roughly what successful clubs gunning on all four fronts were subjected to in the 1970s by virtue of replays and four more league matches. Something’s got to give, something’s got to give, something’s got to give. Or the golden goose will stop laying.
Given Tottenham have got Manchester United away on Sunday and have started in lukewarm fashion with a draw with leicester and defeats by Newcastle and Arsenal to go with their two victories, Ange Postecoglou is bound to draw on the lightly raced elements of his squad such as Archie Gray, Radu Dragusin, Lucas Bergvall and Ben Davies. Given Postecoglou did not see fit to register Sergio Reguilón or Djed Spence in the 25-man squad and with Cristian Romero suspended (for his red card in the Champions League R16 defeat by Milan in 2023), they may have to play Micky van de Ven and Destiny Udogie from the start which would put a stick in the spokes of rotation plans.
Qarabag’s Gurban Gurbanov is starting his 16th season as manager with the club in their customary position at the top of the table. They are already battle-hardened in Europe after winning two Champions League qualification ties before being beaten by Dinamo Zagreb in the play-off and in Juninho, no not that one… or that one, have a potent striker who bagged 31 goals last season, including six in Europe during a run that was only ended by the then invincible Bayer Leverkusen 5-4 on aggregate, Qarabag having led both ties 2-0.
