Tottenham have made a tentative entry into the Europa League final and will travel to Norway on Thursday night to face Bodo Grimm at the Aspmira Stadium in the semi-final second leg. Spurs won the first leg in north London 3-1 last week and the aggregate winners of this tie will face either Manchester United or Athletic Bilbao in the final.

Brennan Johnson gave Spurs the lead in just 38 seconds in the first leg, before James Maddison and Dominic Solanke scored in the 61st minute to make it three goals, but Bodo Grimm's Ulrik Saltnes scored a late goal to give the Norwegian champions a glimmer of hope.

Despite Spurs being one step away from winning their first major trophy in 17 years, head coach Ange Postecoglou has bemoaned the "negative buzz" surrounding the club, which can only rely on Europa League victory to qualify for next season's Champions League due to a dismal domestic campaign. Tottenham Hotspurs have lost 19 of their 35 Premier League games this season, first suffering three straight defeats and then a 1-1 draw with London rivals West Ham United last weekend. They are currently 16th in the table, 14 points behind the top half of the standings. Postecoglou said at the beginning of the season that "I won in my second year" and he is eager to address the team's poor away form, which has only won two of its last 10 away games, but Spurs defeated Frankfurt on their recent Europa League trip and kept a rare clean sheet to win 1-0 and secure a place in the semi-finals.

Spurs haven’t won consecutive away games in a major European competition since November 2013, but after last week’s win over Bodo/Glimt, they have maintained a 100% win record against Norwegian teams – never before have Spurs faced teams from a particular country so frequently while maintaining a 100% win record. The north Londoners will be going all out on Thursday, as only nine of the 92 teams in the history of the Europa League since the league was renamed before the 2009-10 season have failed to advance to the knockout rounds after leading by two or more goals in the first leg at home.

Regardless of the outcome of Thursday’s second leg, Bodo/Glimt have already made history as the first and only Norwegian team to reach the semi-finals of a major European competition. The Premier League has had a full week off to prepare for the latest clash with Tottenham, seeking their first win over an English side having lost all four of their previous such encounters, including their only home game against Spurs’ north London rivals Arsenal in the 2022-23 Europa League. Including last week’s defeat to Spurs, Bodo/Glimt have lost seven of their 11 Europa League away games since the start of the 2022-23 campaign – second only to Roma (8) – while their win rate (9%) is also the lowest of the 19 teams to have played at least eight away games in that period. However, they have won far more at home.

In fact, Bodo/Glimt have won their last five home Europa League games, scoring a total of 15 goals, the most recent of which was a 2-0 victory on penalties over 36-team leader Lazio in the second leg of the quarter-final. Head coach Knutson urged his players on Thursday to "give it their all" if they hope to etch their names in the history books.

Bodo Grimt's predicted starting lineup:

Haikin; Shevold, Nelson, Gunderson, Bjork; Evjen, Berg, Saltness; Mata, Hogg, Blomberg

Spurs' predicted starting lineup:

Vicario; Porro, Romero, Van der Ven, Udogi; Sarr, Bentancur, Kulusevski; Johnson, Solanke, Son Heung-min