IT IS being described as the most glamorous match in the club’s history, the likely away support as a “wave of blue”, although the numbers travelling will be in their hundreds rather than their thousands. This is only the Uefa Cup, but for suburban Getafe, in only their fourth season in the top division of Spanish football, it is Europe for the first time, so White Hart Lane suddenly sounds as resonant and romantic as the Bernabeu or the Nou Camp did not so long ago.

For one member of the Getafe coaching staff, a trip to play Tottenham Hotspur, where Group G of the competition begins on Thursday, sounded especially resonant when the draw was made. Since the summer, John Jensen has been an assistant to Michael Laudrup at the Madrid club.

Jensen is also a Gooner, an Arsenal footballer for a four-year spell that included the 1994 Cup Winners’ Cup triumph. For that, Tottenham will forever be an evocative place.

“I’m really looking forward to going back to London,” says Jensen. “Those derbies were always the best games because of the atmosphere and because in those days you had so many more English players in both teams that you really felt how much it meant to beat Tottenham.”

Jensen expects he will be reminded frequently of his special status among Arsenal supporters over the two days he spends in London.

“It always happens,” he says with a laugh, “that some Arsenal fan comes up to me and says, ‘I was there when you scored’.” He did so just once in nearly 100 Premier League games, although he likes to think that despite a sparse record as a goalscorer, he was a popular player for his effort and industry.

“The fans saw that I worked hard and it was nice to be in the dressing room before games and the guys would say: ‘Who’s going to get the biggest applause today, Ian Wright or John Jensen?’ ” Jensen left Arsenal in 1996. He finished his playing career in his native Denmark, where his status goes some way beyond cult for a very important goal he scored for the national team, in the victorious final of Euro 92 against Germany.

He made a fine start in management, taking Herfolge to a Danish league title. Five years ago he teamed up at Brondby with Laudrup, probably the finest footballer Denmark has produced, an elegant player for Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid and a charismatic appointment for Getafe in July as successor to the German Bernd Schuster, who had moved to coach Real Madrid.

On the face of it, Laudrup and Jensen are an odd couple – one a superstar, a cavalier footballer, the other seemingly more gritty. Laudrup has his own wine company; Jensen gained a nickname as a player, Faxe, apparently inspired by a Danish lager.

“As a management team we are a bit like we were as players, and we are different personalities,” Jensen confirms. “Michael takes the big view of the attacking aspects of the game. He was always a passer, a traditional No 10. Me, I tackled a lot and now I work on how we close down a team and our organisation. I think I learnt a lot about that playing under George Graham at Arsenal.”

And, yes, he says he was surprised when he learnt that Graham, who left Arsenal in the wake of the bungs scandal connected with the original transfer of Jensen, had gone on to manage Tottenham.

What the Laudrup-Jensen tandem has not yet done is maintain the momentum that Schuster had given Getafe, who reached the Spanish Cup final in June and finished in the top half of La Liga in their second and third seasons after promotion.

They go into this afternoon’s fixture against Murcia firmly mired in the relegation zone, fresh from an emergency meeting among the players last week about a mounting crisis and the first signs of impatience with the head coach. It is hardly what could be described as ideal preparation for a European fixture.

Getafe have had bad fortune with injuries. They played well enough to deserve to win or draw their tougher matches, at Valencia and against Real Madrid, but five defeats in the opening seven matches of the campaign is not the form to seem them back in Europe next season, and their position makes Spurs’ look comfortable by comparison.

“It has been frustrating,” says Jensen, “because it is not as if any team has completely outplayed us. We could have beaten Real Madrid by four goals that night, and we lost 1-0. Our worst performance was against Twente in the Uefa Cup – and we won that. But we do need points in the table or the confidence will suffer.”

Laudrup continues to speak as a purist, advocating a passing game that he trusts will bring results. He maintains that it is the way to thrive in Spanish football. “In Spain, possession of the ball is the main thing; in England, maintaining a rhythm may be more important,” he says.

Jensen appreciates that the league position being what it is, Europe may have assumed a secondary role. “Our first priority must be the league, first to stay in the top division in Spain and then hopefully to qualify again for the Uefa Cup.”