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Spurs' record in Europe:-
U.E.F.A Champions League
P W D L F - A
12 5 3 4 25 -19
European Cup
P W D L F - A
8 4 1 3 21 - 13
(Semi-Finalists 1962)
European Cup Winners Cup
P W D L F - A
33 20 5 8 65 - 34
(Winners 1963)
UEFA Cup/Europa League
P W D L F - A
128 73 33 22 257-106
(Winners 1972, 1984
Finalists 1974)
Total
P W D L F - A
181 102 42 37 362-172
Tricky start for Spurs
Spurs start their 2015-16 Europa League Campaign with a tricky Group J game against Qarabag FK from Azerbaijan. Qarabag are making the longest trip of any club in match 1 - some 2,500 miles. Obviously, Spurs have the same distance to travel in late November, but I suspect they won't be sending too many of the first team on that journey.
Whilst Mauricio Pochettino will want to get off to a winning start today, there will surely be opportunities to "use the squad", and to give game time to players such as Kieran Tripper and Kevin Wimmer, who must be itching to play. The presence of an interview with Tom Carroll on the official site suggests that he will play, perhaps in place of Ryan Mason. Erik Lamela and Andros Townsend were both impactive substitutes at Sunderland on Sunday, and will probably start. With no travel involved, Pochettino will probably be quite happy to play some regulars, such as Hugo Lloris. Josh Onomah, who was allocated a first team squad number at the start of the season, took no part in this week's under-21 game, and I would love to see him take a part. Of course, we are also waiting for Clinton N'Jie's debut too!
We do know that Eriksen, Dembele, and Bentaleb have been joined on the injury list by Ryan Mason, who injured his knee when scoring at Sunderland. The final selection by anybody other than the head coach is pure guesswork, but Danny Rose is another due a start.
The game is a tricky one, because Spurs won't know too much about Qarabag. However, they will know they have surprised one or two decent teams in the last year or two. Qarabag are the Azerbaijani champions of the last two seasons and currently lead their table. They lost 1-0 on aggregate to Celtic in their Champions League third qualifying round, but then beat Young Boys 4-0 on aggregate in the Europa League play-off to reach this group phase.
Last year FC Twente were Qarabag's victims at the same stage, when our opponents won on away goals. You will note that in recent years in European competition, we have met both FC Twente and Young Boys. We made harder work (at least away) of beating Young Boys in our Champions League play-off games in August 2010. FC Twente were then one of our opponents in the Group stage. We won convincingly at home (4-1) and drew 3-3 away. You could re-visit these and other games via the 2010-11 fixtures page
This will be the first ever meeting in a UEFA competition between an English club and one from Azerbaijan.
As I so often comment, so many European teams have at least one Brazilian in their squad, and Qarabag are no exception. They have three - all midfielders. 28 year old Chumbinho played 33 games last season, but has only played 45 minutes so far this season. he came to Qarabag from Greece. Wing-man Reynaldo is not the only player to have been signed from fellow Group J members Anderlecht, arriving at Qarabag during the 2012-13 season. Reynaldo scored 14 league goals from 22 games last season, and has two from 8 games in total so far this season.
The third Brazilian, and perhaps the danger-man on current form is Richard. he has not played every game, but he has scored 4 goals in his last 4 appearances, two of which were against Young Boys. Richard is a penalty taker.
A player only recently signed from Anderlecht is Swedish under-21 International Samuel Armenteros, aged 25. Armenteros plays anywhere across the front three, and scored Qarabag's only goal (the winner) on Saturday in their Premier league game.
Spurs' chances of progress from the Group stage would be severely hampered by anything less than a win here, and I'll go for a relatively comfortable 2-0 win.
The referee Adrien Jaccottet and all his officials are from Switzerland. Whilst we have not experienced Mr.Jaccottet, it is interesting to note that he twice refereed the Azerbaijan under 19 team this summer. One of their matches was against England, who won 1-0. Mr Jaccottet is certainly not reluctant to issue cards, and over the last year, his average card count per game is 4.9.
· On this date 10 years ago, Spurs drew 1-1 at Villa Park, when Robbie Keane equalised an early goal by James Milner
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