Story byThe Manchester United-Tottenham rivalry just got spicierMegan FeringaMon, December 15, 2025 at 5:16 AM UTC·6 min readFridolina Rolfo makes it 3-3 and Manchester United’s coaching staff unleashes into the technical area, their turn for joyful chaos; Tottenham Hotspur’s time to stare into the abyss. Apparently, this isn’t a rivalry. Not if you listened to the on-record press conferences, the politeness and slightly barbed niceties exchanged from United manager Marc Skinner and Martin Ho — Spurs head coach and Skinner’s former assistant — across the Zoom airwaves on Friday morning. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut the warring emotions on the Leigh Sport Village touchline seem to tell a different story: the surge of pure red blood cells at each of the six goals scored; the seething, silent resentment at conceding them; how both sets of coaching staff and players experienced this gloriously unhinged draw in varying states of emotion. There were jeers, boos, bone-crunching tackles, defensive bodies hurled on the line inside 50 minutes, a fourth official caught on either side by teeth gnashing over alleged officiating injustices. If anything, this is rivalry at its best: full-throated, inebriating, believing, with all your heart, you are simply better than your opponent. It has been nearly six years since Spurs and United arrived in the WSL in the same season, Spurs runners-up to the Championship title winners United in 2019.