 Match programme cover | |||||||
| Event | 2024–25 UEFA Europa League | ||||||
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| Date | 21 May 2025 (2025-05-21) | ||||||
| Venue | San Mamés,Bilbao | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Cristian Romero(Tottenham Hotspur)[1] | ||||||
| Referee | Felix Zwayer (Germany)[2] | ||||||
| Attendance | 49,924[3] | ||||||
| Weather | Partly cloudy night 14 °C (57 °F) 78%humidity[4] | ||||||
←2024 2026 → | |||||||
The2025 UEFA Europa League final was the final match of the2024–25 UEFA Europa League, the 54th season of Europe's secondary clubfootball tournament organised byUEFA, and the 16th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to theUEFA Europa League. The match was played atSan Mamés inBilbao, Spain, on 21 May 2025, between English clubsTottenham Hotspur andManchester United.[5][6] It was the eleventh tournament final to feature two teams from the same association and the third all-English final. The match was noted for both teams making the final despite poor performances in the2024–25 Premier League.[7]
Tottenham Hotspur won the match 1–0 for their third UEFA Cup/Europa League title and their first trophy in 17 years.[8] As winners, they earned a league phase spot in the2025–26 UEFA Champions League and the right to play against the winners of the2024–25 UEFA Champions League for the2025 UEFA Super Cup.[9]
Tottenham Hotspur reached their fourth UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League final, the first time since the competition was rebranded in 2009. This would be the sixth time they appeared in the final of a UEFA competition, having played in oneUEFA Champions League final (losing in2019), oneCup Winners' Cup final (winning in1963 to become the first British team to win a European trophy), and threeUEFA Cup finals (winning the inaugural competition in1972 and then in1984, and losing in1974).[10][11]
Manchester United reached their thirteenth final in UEFA competitions, having won the European Cup/Champions League on three occasions (1968—the first English team to win the title,1999, and2008) and lost twice (2009 and2011). They have also won one Cup Winners' Cup final (1991), played in two UEFA Europa League finals (winning in2017 and losing in2021), and contested fourUEFA Super Cups (winning in1991 and losing in1999,2008 and2017).
The sides had met 204 times previously, with United winning 95 matches and Tottenham 57. They met in two title-deciding matches, the1967 FA Charity Shield and2009 Football League Cup final, both of which ended in draws; however, the latter was won by United onpenalties.[12] They met in a European tie in 1963, in whichFA Cup holders United eliminated Tottenham, who were thetournament defending champions, in thesecond round of the Cup Winners' Cup.[13]
The two clubs met twice during the2024–25 Premier League season, with Tottenham winning both matches, 3–0 atOld Trafford and 1–0 atTottenham Hotspur Stadium. Tottenham also beat United 4–3 in the2024–25 EFL Cup quarter-finals, the first time United lost three times against Tottenham in the same season.[14] In the build-up to the final, media attention focused on both clubs' poor league form throughout the season; at the time they progressed from their semi-final ties, both United and Tottenham were mathematically certain to finish in the bottom half of the Premier League. As a result, whichever club lost the final would not play in any European competition at all during the 2025–26 season, with the winner's season being 'saved' by reaching the lucrative Champions League despite their poor domestic campaign.[15]
In that season's Europa League, the two clubs (England's only entrants) had finished in the top eight in the competition's league phase, involving a new format with a single table of 36 teams each playing eight opponents once; consequently they progressed to the Round of 16 and were seeded, with the knockout ties using the familiar two-leg system. Manchester United's victory overOlympique Lyonnais in the quarter-finals, in which they scored three times in the last few minutes of extra-time to turn a 4–2 deficit into a 5–4 win, was described in the media as one of the greatest comebacks in the history of European football.[16]
This was the third all-English final in the history of the competition, after 1972 between Tottenham andWolverhampton Wanderers and2019 betweenArsenal andChelsea, and the sixth all-English final in any of UEFA's three main competitions, with three all-England UEFA Champions League finals; both Manchester United (vs Chelsea) and Tottenham (vs Liverpool) having appeared in one of those 'derby' finals.
Due tocoefficient rankings, this third all-English final in the history of the competition also confirmed that there would be an unprecedented six teams from the2024–25 Premier League qualifying for the2025–26 UEFA Champions League.[17]
In the following table, the finals until 2009 were in the UEFA Cup era and since 2010 were in the UEFA Europa League era.
| Team | Previous final appearances (bold indicates winners) |
|---|---|
 Tottenham Hotspur | 3 (1972,1974,1984) |
| Manchester United | 2 (2017,2021) |
On 16 July 2021, the UEFA Executive Committee announced that due to the loss of hosting rights forUEFA Euro 2020,San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao was given hosting rights for the 2025 final and the2024 UEFA Women's Champions League final. This was part of a settlement agreement by UEFA to recognise the efforts and financial investment made to host UEFA Euro 2020.[5]
The 'host' clubAthletic Bilbao was also competing in the tournament and reached the semi-finals before being eliminated by Manchester United.[18][19][20][21]
Note: In all results below, the score of the finalist is given first (H: home; A: away).
| Tottenham Hotspur | Round | Manchester United | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opponent | Result | League phase | Opponent | Result | ||||
 Qarabağ | 3–0 (H) | Matchday 1 |  Twente | 1–1 (H) | ||||
 Ferencváros | 2–1 (A) | Matchday 2 |  Porto | 3–3 (A) | ||||
| AZ | 1–0 (H) | Matchday 3 |  Fenerbahçe | 1–1 (A) | ||||
| Galatasaray | 2–3 (A) | Matchday 4 |  PAOK | 2–0 (H) | ||||
 Roma | 2–2 (H) | Matchday 5 |  Bodø/Glimt | 3–2 (H) | ||||
 Rangers | 1–1 (A) | Matchday 6 |  Viktoria Plzeň | 2–1 (A) | ||||
 TSG Hoffenheim | 3–2 (A) | Matchday 7 | Rangers | 2–1 (H) | ||||
 IF Elfsborg | 3–0 (H) | Matchday 8 |  FCSB | 2–0 (A) | ||||
| 4th place Advanced to round of 16 | Final position | 3rd place Advanced to round of 16 | ||||||
| Opponent | Agg. | 1st leg | 2nd leg | Knockout phase | Opponent | Agg. | 1st leg | 2nd leg |
| AZ | 3–2 | 0–1 (A) | 3–1 (H) | Round of 16 |  Real Sociedad | 5–2 | 1–1 (A) | 4–1 (H) |
| Eintracht Frankfurt | 2–1 | 1–1 (H) | 1–0 (A) | Quarter-finals |  Lyon | 7–6 | 2–2 (A) | 5–4 (a.e.t.) (H) |
| Bodø/Glimt | 5–1 | 3–1 (H) | 2–0 (A) | Semi-finals | Athletic Bilbao | 7–1 | 3–0 (A) | 4–1 (H) |
The "home" team (for administrative purposes) was predetermined as the winner of semi-final 1 (Tottenham Hotspur).
          Tottenham Hotspur[4] |      Manchester United[4] |
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Man of the Match: Assistant referees:[2] | Match rules
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