Tottenham’s Micky van de Ven has revealed what winning the Europa League meant to him and discussed his improved form in front of goal this season.
While the 2024-25 season was extremely grim for Tottenham Hotspur domestically, it was a campaign that had a special ending.
Spurs managed to end their 17-year trophy drought when they beat Manchester United in Bilbao in the Europa League final in May.
For a whole generation of Spurs fans, it was the first piece of silverware that they had seen the club win, and a Tottenham defender has opened up on how special the achievement was to him.
Micky van de Ven admits Tottenham fans still thank him for Europa League final moment
Van de Ven has confessed that lifting the trophy at the San Mames was the proudest moment of his career, and expressed his satisfaction at making Tottenham’s critics eat their words.
The 24-year-old admitted that Spurs fans still thank him to this day for the goalline clearance in the final, revealing that his parents have a framed picture of the clearance.
Van de Ven told Sky Sports: “Winning the Europa League was a massive moment in my year. It’s the biggest moment of my career so far.
“When I joined Spurs, everybody says: ‘You’re never going to win something. You’re never going to win silverware. You’re never going to win something’. Everyone just banters you about this.
“Even under the social media comments, when the people heard I had interest from Tottenham, everybody was on it. Sometimes people still come up to me and say: Thank you for the goal-line clearance. It keeps in people’s mind the whole time. My father has a photo of it, my mother has one, but I don’t have one myself.”
Van de Ven admits he was keen to score more goals
The centre-back has started contributing goals regularly since Thomas Frank arrived through the door, having already found the back of the net six times this season across all competitions.
That includes a potential Puskas contender against Copenhagen, which the Netherlands international is very proud of.
When asked about his goalscoring prowess, Van de Ven responded: “As a centre-back, you want to score goals as well, and you want to be important for the team. Last season, I scored only one goal and it was the last game of the season for the national team. So I wanted to score more this season.”
When asked about his goal against Copenhagen, he said: “At the beginning, I just wanted to dribble past one player, and then I saw three players coming up to me. I just did one movement and saw I was through. I went through on goal and saw one Copenhagen player was still there – but Randal Kolo Muani was to the right of him.
“I was never passing, impossible. I just kept going, and going and going to the goal. The defender was staying in the middle, so I accelerated. Then I was through and had to finish it, or I made the run for nothing.
“I knew I had done something special there. I think I will be one of the Puskas nominees. I think it’s similar to Sonny’s goal which won it. I spoke to him about it, he says his goal is better. Sometimes you can joke about it, he texted me the day after.”
- READ MORE: Thomas Frank provides update on yet another potential Cristian Romero suspension at Tottenham