Football writer Alex Keble analyses the UEFA Europa League final as Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester United 1-0 in Bilbao to win their first trophy in 17 years and secure a place in next season's UEFA Champions League.
Spurs are Europa League champions, and just like that everything changes.
The Ange Postecoglou philosophy has been justified, the project vindicated. A dreadful season becomes an historic one.
All that came before it – from the burst of kamikaze attacking football when Postecoglou first arrived to the rapid decline this year – will be reframed by what happened tonight.
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Every low point, every stumbling block on the road, now only adds to the romanticism of Spurs’ journey to winning the Europa League; every story about the manager’s dogmatic tactics is now part of Postecoglou’s legend.
He has given Spurs fans their first trophy since 2008, their first European silverware since 1984 and the third Europa League in the club’s history.
He has also given them their single greatest achievement of the 21st century.
Indeed, major silverware and Champions League qualification produces one simple and unavoidable conclusion: Postecoglou has been an unqualified success. This was mission accomplished.
Postecoglou completes the job as Spurs take huge step forward
“I always win things in my second year.”
Postecoglou’s words after the north London derby defeat to Arsenal in September have hung around his neck like an albatross – or at least that’s how it looked from the outside.
But Postecoglou has fulfilled his promise, has lived up to that self-confidence and has written his name into Spurs’ history.
For him personally this is a career high, the culmination of a 30-year coaching career that began at semi-professional South Melbourne and took in Japan and Scotland.
Whatever happens next, he is now a European champion, and the first ever from outside Europe to win a European trophy. It’s a rags-to-riches story few can match.
For Spurs, too, this victory was a moment of relief, vindication, and exorcism.
“It wasn’t me boasting,” Postecoglou told TNT Sport about his promise to win a trophy in his second year.
“It was me just making a declaration and I believed it.
“I just had this thing inside me that more than anything else – and I know our league form has been terrible, nowhere near good enough and not acceptable – but us finishing third wasn’t going to change this football club.
“The only thing that was going to change this football club was us winning something.”
This is the “monkey off their back,” in Postecoglou’s words.
Sarr’s performance defines a scrappy match
And they got it done, remarkably enough, by abandoning everything the Postecoglou era has stood for.
That only makes the victory more extraordinary, more folkloric.
Spurs had a pass-completion rate of just 62 per cent, more than 10 per cent lower than in any other match in any competition this season.
In fact, they had three shots, 27.7 per cent possession, and 115 completed passes, which are all the lowest figures Opta have ever recorded in a major European final.
Postecoglou told TNT Sport it was a deliberate ploy.
“I’ve always felt that knockout football is different from league football,” he said. “When you’re in that situation it comes down to good organisation.”
The tactics might have been different, but Spurs did show the kind of tenacity and pressing energy their manager preaches, none more so than Pape Sarr.
The winning goal was indicative of the wider story, of Sarr’s energy closing down Bruno Fernandes and Casemiro and of how Postecoglou’s three-man midfield had too much fire and fury for the Man Utd duo.
After noticing the congestion in midfield, Fernandes told his team-mate to go long, only to receive possession and get caught by the battling Sarr, who broke forward and crossed for Johnson’s winner.
How Spurs broke forward to score
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No UCL football makes Man Utd’s rebuild significantly harder – or does it?
The ecstasy of the Spurs fans has its equal and opposite reaction in the Man Utd end.
There will be no redemption for Ruben Amorim. A dismal domestic season gets no reprieve in Europe, and Man Utd must now face the music of one of the worst seasons in their history.
Amorim has overseen a clear downturn in performances and results since his appointment, and without a Europa League win there is nothing to take the gloss off a disappointing campaign.
Worse, an already tough rebuild just got harder.
“I think that the recruitment list that they had if they won has got to be scrapped now,” Rio Ferdinand said on TNT Sports after.
“There’s certain players that aren’t going to think about just Man Utd’s badge and history.”
Without the financial boost or the ability to attract players who want to play in the Champions League, Man Utd are undoubtedly in a difficult position – but defeat on Wednesday night could be a blessing in disguise.
No midweek football means Amorim will have “time on the training pitch”, Gareth Bale added.
“In hindsight it’s not a terrible thing for Man Utd. It gives the manager a platform to stamp his management on the club.”
That has to be how Amorim frames tonight’s result to his players and the fans. The hard work starts now.
That may also be true for Postecoglou, who batted away questions about his future.
“Yes, I do [want to stay],” he said. “I don’t feel I’ve completed the job yet.
“Whatever happens, happens,” he said. “I said yesterday, we're still building this team, it's still a very young team.
“We need to add some experience to it, we're in the Champions League. My thought process and what I've been doing is trying to build a team that can be successful for four, five or six years.”
In the afterglow of tonight’s victory, Spurs fans might be inclined to agree.
