Tottenham/Vitesse drawn against Rapid Wien in ECL knock-out round

The situation surrounding Tottenham Hotspur’s now-cancelled Europa Conference League match against Rennes hasn’t been settled and we might not know the final resolution for a while yet, but we now know Tottenham’s opponent if they’re allowed to remain in the competition. The Europa Conference League draw was held this morning, moments after the hilariously screwed up Champions League draw and that of the Europa League, and Tottenham/Vitesse were drawn against Rapid Wien in the playoff round.

The one thing we know for sure is that Tottenham would finish at best second in their ECL group, meaning that in order to advance they first need to play a home and home series against a third place Europa League team that has dropped down. Rapid Wien finished third in Europa League Group H, behind West Ham and Spurs’ old friends Dinamo Zagreb, and just barely ahead of last-place Genk. Rapid are currently fifth in the Austrian league, well back from RB Salzburg and potentially in danger of slipping into the relegation tournament. It’s not a bad team to draw if Spurs have to continue in this competition; PSV and Marseille likely would’ve provided stiffer competition, and Celtic were also hanging around as potential opponents. But then again, Spurs also lost to Mura, so who the hell knows.

Of course, we also don’t know if Spurs will even be in the competition at all. They are awaiting a ruling from UEFA as to what will happen since the pivotal final group stage match against Rennes was cancelled due to a COVID-19 outbreak within Spurs’ first team. It’s likely one of these teams will have to forfeit — probably Spurs since they weren’t able to compete, but kinda-maybe-possibly also Rennes because they seemed intransigently unwilling to consider a rescheduled date for the competition. We just don’t know, but hopefully will be hearing from UEFA soon.

The first leg of the knock-out round is scheduled to take place on February 17.