FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - UEFA Super Cup - Tottenham Hotspur Training - Bluenergy Stadium, Udine, Italy - August 12, 2025 Tottenham Hotspur's Mathys Tel during training REUTERS/Jennifer Lorenzini/File Photo
(Reuters) -Coach Thomas Frank hopes Tottenham Hotspur fans will give Mathys Tel a "really big cheer" in Saturday's Premier League campaign opener after the forward faced racial abuse on social media for missing a penalty in Wednesday's UEFA Super Cup loss to Paris St Germain.
Frank said no real Spurs fan would have done that to the 20-year-old.
"I think it's terrible what happened to Mathys... there's no real Tottenham supporter that will ever do that," Frank told reporters on Friday ahead of their home game against Burnley.
"The real Tottenham supporters that we'll see tomorrow at the stadium, they'll back him, and I expect them to... in tough times we step up together, and I expect the fans to give him a really, really, really big cheer tomorrow.”
Frank said he wanted to focus on the game ahead, with the Europa League winners hopeful of a winning start after finishing 17th in the Premier League last season.
Yves Bissouma, who was left out of the squad on Wednesday for being late several times, will be in the squad for the Burnley game, the Danish coach added.
"You deal with these situations internally. It’s dealt with, and I’m looking forward," he said.
Frank said Spurs had no new injury concerns going into the weekend, adding that defender Destiny Udogie, who missed the Super Cup due to a knee injury, would be unavailable.
"Destiny is progressing, but it's too early for him to be involved in the squad," he said.
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
