Tottenham will not play a friendly ahead of Champions League finals

Tottenham Hotspur are planning to depart for the Spanish capital of Madrid next Wednesday to prepare for the Champions League final on June 1, but their preparations will not include a friendly match ahead of the final.

Dan Kilpatrick in the Evening Standard is reporting that Spurs will focus their training efforts in Madrid on tactics and fitness, emphasizing the rehabilitation of Harry Kane and Jan Vertonghen, but they won’t be scrimmaging against another club. Liverpool, by contrast, are jetting out to Marbella for a week-long training camp that will include a friendly match in preparation for Spurs, though the Standard did not say who the Reds will be playing.

After a frantic end to the Premier League season that saw an exhausted Spurs squad limp to 11 points from its last 11 matches, Mauricio Pochettino’s squad have been using the past three weeks to rest and rehabilitate its injured squad. You can understand, then, Spurs’ reluctance to scrimmage against another team when there’s the possibility of injury to players who are only now coming back to fitness.

There was also context about yesterday’s photo on Tottenham’s twitter account that showed Kane, Vertonghen, and Davinson Sanchez in training — Kilpatrick noted that while the trio are now outside and running, they have yet to join the rest of the team in full contact drills.