Even though he did not start or even play a single minute in the match, Brennan Johnson will get to walk away from the 2025/26 season as a European champion for a second straight season, a statement that would have seemed incredulous to any Tottenham Hotspur supporter had it been uttered as a set in stone prediction to them prior to the start of the 2024/25 season.
Goodness how 2024 seems like a life time ago to Tottenham, as they have gone through the high of a Europa League title, the low of a Premier League relegation battle, the Thomas Frank and Roberto De Zerbi hirings after the end of the Ange Postecoglou era, the even more swift end to Daniel Levy's era, and the tearful goodbye to Son Heung-min.
Johnson himself waved farewell to the Hotspur rather unceremoniously in the January transfer window, getting sold for a record fee to Crystal Palace. Spurs lost Mohammd Kudus and Wilson Odobert to season ending injuries with Dejan Kulusevski never returning from his knee issue, so it's hard to say in the short term that Spurs were better off without the Welsh international, even as Johnson has played pretty poorly for Palace and been placed out of the starting lineup entirely.
Brennan Johnson is a European champion again
But while Tottenham Hotspur may not regret selling Brennan Johnson and probably got the best case deal possible at 35 million pounds, it is a cruel irony that Spurs will walk away from the 2025/26 season having nearly gone down in their worst ever campaign while Johnson skated by as a European champion despite barely contributing anything to the cause of Oliver Glasner - one of the managers Spurs actually thought about hiring last year when they bagged Thomas Frank from Brentford instead.
Johnson's success is only more motivation that Roberto De Zerbi can use for his bulletin board, showing images of Johnson and Crystal Palace celebrating their European triumph while Spurs had to settle for celebrating not getting relegated - a totally unthinkable proposition for Spurs all the way back at the start of the 2024/25 Premier League season, too.
Going forward, Tottenham hope that they can get a healthy Dejan Kulusevski, Wilson Odobert back to his best on that right wing, and, of course, Mohammed Kudus playing like one of the best wingers in the Premier League on that flank. Because these are guys who have to be looking at Johnson and thinking that they can be just as heroic as he was in winning the Europa League with the key goal against Manchester United - or getting pulled up to the Conference League title.
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