Tottenham's Federico Fazio Aims for Europa League Glory and Champions League Football Next Season

Tottenham Hotspur's new centre-back Federico Fazio has urged his teammates to work hard in the Europa League, as the winner will earn a Champions League spot next season.

The Argentine won the competition last season while playing for Sevilla and wants to replicate that success at White Hart Lane.

"It's a great competition and this season if we win, it takes us straight through to the Champions League," he said on Tottenham's official website.

"The tournament is great because you can play in other countries and then, in the knockout stage, it's good to play against teams from the Champions League – some very good teams.

"We need to enjoy it as we have a good team that wants to do well in this competition."

Fazio believes Spurs will have to focus in their opening game against Partizan Belgrade on Thursday 18 September and take the competition one game at a time in order to succeed.

"At Sevilla we started very early in the competition with four matches in qualifying, then the group stage and then the knockout. It was 19 games in total – a lot of matches," he said.

"It's difficult but if we want to win this competition, we need to compete in all the matches. We need to start strongly in a difficult game in Partizan and try to get the three points.

"The final is in May but we must take it match by match and think about the next game. That's against Partizan and we need to win."

Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino has also said the Europa League is a priority for the north London side but has surprisingly decided to leave a number of crucial players out of the squad, including Emmanuel Adebayor, Younes Kaboul, Danny Rose, Moussa Dembele and Nacer Chadli.