Europa League: Tottenham’s Son, Romero and Bentancur made to wait for medals in Bilbao

Amid the celebrations that followed Tottenham’s Europa League triumph, three players were left waiting for their winner’s medal.

Manager Ange Postecoglou was first to receive a medal from Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin following the 1-0 win over Manchester United.

Injured trio James Maddison, Timo Werner and Lucas Bergvall and Will Lankshear – who spent the second half of the season on loan at West Brom – were also in the line and had a medal draped around their neck.

However, club captain Son Heung-min, Cristian Romero and Rodrigo Bentancur weren’t so lucky and had to wait until they got into the dressing room to get theirs.

“To our great displeasure, we did not have enough medals available on stage during the trophy ceremony presentation due to an unexpected discrepancy in the player count, as more team members – including injured players – participated in the ceremony than initially anticipated,” Uefa said.

“The missing medals were promptly delivered to the winning team in the dressing room, along with our sincerest apologies for the oversight.”

According to Uefa’s rules, both the winning and losing teams are presented with 50 medals each.

It is at the discretion of the club as to how those medals are distributed between players and staff.

Uefa had prepared 30 medals to hand out on the pitch prior to Spurs lifting their first piece of silverware in 17 years.

But as well as Tottenham’s 23-man matchday squad and the manager, several members of the team who were unavailable to feature also took part in the ceremony.

Son, as skipper, was waiting patiently at the back of the line so he could collect the trophy and take it to his team-mates before lifting it into the air.

The South Korea forward had to make do with just a hug from Ceferin but he was later seen sporting a winner’s medal – the first he has picked up in his senior career at club or international level.