May 8, 2025
Bodø/Glimt - Tottenham
On Thursday, May 8, 2025, Norwegian side Bodø/Glimt will host English club Tottenham Hotspur in the return leg of the UEFA Europa League semifinal. The London team enters the match with a two-goal advantage after a 3-1 home victory and is close to their first European final since 2019.
History is on Tottenham's side. In the era of the UEFA Europa League since its rebranding ahead of the 2009-10 season, there have been 92 instances of a team winning the first leg of a knockout match on home soil by a 2+ goal margin. Only nine of them eventually failed to progress in the tie. All eight previous semifinalists who achieved this feat advanced to the final.
The Norwegian club has a poor record against English opponents. Bodø/Glimt has lost all four matches against English opposition in major European competitions, including their only home fixture against Arsenal in October 2022 (0-1). In each of the other three defeats, the Norwegian side conceded exactly three goals.
With their 3-1 first leg victory, Tottenham achieved five wins out of five against Norwegian opposition in major European competition. The "Spurs" have never faced teams from a specific country more often while maintaining a 100% success rate.
Bodø/Glimt has lost seven of their last 12 knockout matches in European competition (3 wins, 2 draws), however, all three victories during this period came on home soil, including a 2-0 triumph over Lazio in the quarter-final stage.
Tottenham won their last away UEFA Europa League game 1-0 at Eintracht Frankfurt, but haven't won back-to-back away matches in major European competition since November 2013 (then 3 in the Europa League) and last did so in knockout stages in March 2008 (2 in the UEFA Cup).
Including qualifiers, Bodø/Glimt has won nine of their last ten home European outings (1 loss), scoring 2+ goals in all but one of those matches - a 2-1 defeat to Qarabag during this season's UEFA Europa League group stage.
Tottenham recorded their eighth win in the UEFA Europa League this season in the first leg; they've never won nine matches in a single campaign across major European competitions before.
No team in this season's UEFA Europa League has scored more goals on home soil than Bodø/Glimt (19). Since the 2009-10 season in this competition, only Bayer Leverkusen has recorded more home goals in a single season than the Norwegian outfit (21 in the 2023-24 campaign).
Kasper Høgh has netted seven goals in the UEFA Europa League for Bodø/Glimt this season, tied for the most of any player alongside Olympiacos' Ayoub El Kaabi and Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes. His 50% shot conversion rate is jointly the highest of any player to score 3+ goals this season. In the competition's entire history, only James Tavernier in the 2021-22 season recorded the same number of goals in one campaign with a higher shot conversion rate (7 goals - 53.8%).
Dominic Solanke has contributed to eight goals in this season's UEFA Europa League (4 goals, 4 assists), the most by a Spurs player in major European competition since Carlos Vinícius recorded nine points (6 goals, 3 assists) in this competition during the 2020-21 season.
Thursday's encounter in Norway's Bodø thus offers a clash between a team with an impressive home offensive record and a side on the verge of a historic progression to a European final. Tottenham, thanks to their two-goal advantage from the first leg, are in a favorable position, but the Norwegian side has proven, especially on home soil, that they can be a dangerous opponent even for clubs from elite European leagues.
Photo: source XYZ
We thank OPTA for providing the statistical data.
Comments
Post a Comment