Tottenham face Eintracht Frankfurt in the second leg on their Europa League quarter-final on Thursday night.
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Tottenham are now preparing for their Europa League second leg with Eintracht Frankfurt, heading to Germany on level terms after a frustrating first leg. Spurs dominated the first leg for the most part, but found themselves unable to find a winner after coming from behind.
Since the first leg, the North London club was thrashed by strugglers Wolves away from home, with all momentum eliminated, though, there may be an element of players saving their best for the Europa League due to already being out of contention for the European places in the Premier League.
The Europa League remains an avenue to the Champions League, but Spurs are going to have to win the competition, and it might also take that impressive feat for Ange Postecoglou to keep his job, too, with the Australian under intense pressure after a disastrous season.
The first challenge will be producing an away win against a Frankfurt side sat in third place in Bundesliga, coming off a 3-0 win over Heidenhaim. And for those who believe in bad omens, Spurs might just have been handed one by UEFA with the confirmation of the referee for the fixture.
Italian official Davide Massa has been appointed, and Tottenham have a sole bad memory of Massa being in charge. His only Spurs fixture came in 2021 when Tottenham suffered a comeback defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in the Round of 16 of this competition, losing 3-0 after extra time. Spurs had won the first leg 2-0 but collapsed away from home. Massa gave out just one yellow card in that fixture, so he did not produce a controversial performance.
The good news is that Eintracht Frankfurt have also only has Massa for one game previously, and that was a 3-0 defeat to Arsenal in the group stage of the 2019/20 Europa League. Though, it’s worth noting that the fixture did come a couple of years before Frankfurt truly hit their stride, with the German club hitting a real surge over recent years. Frankfurt are currently on course for Champions League qualification in Bundesliga.
Tel on Frankfurt test
Speaking after the Wolves game, Spurs star Mathys Tel spoke about the upcoming game against Frankfurt and the need to bounce back. He told Tottenham’s official channel: “It’s a difficult day. We know that, but we can’t give up. We have to learn from this situation. We have to show who we are and go again. We have a big game on Thursday, and we have to be ready, go ahead and don’t give up. It’s about concentration. We have to concentrate from the first minute until the last minute.”
On scoring against Wolves and his personal form, Tel added: “I’m very happy to score my second goal in the Premier League, but I’m a person who just looks (out) for my team, always my team. Yes, I scored a goal, but we lost, so I’m not happy. I thought we showed some good things, but we made a lot of mistakes and that’s why we lost.”