When Olivia Holdt stepped up on her Spurs debut to curl home an added time free kick winner against Crystal Palace on January 26th, 2025, quite few could have predicted the journey that she or the club would go on in the following 13 months.
Then 23 year old Holdt had joined Spurs from Swedish side FC Rosengård under then Spurs Manager Robert Vilahamn, who hoped the Dane would be able to turn Tottenham’s fortunes around in the second half of 24/25. What happened was the second half of a campaign from hell, losing 12 of their last 13 games in all competitions and only finishing one place outside the relegation zone.
Fast forward to 2025/2026, Spurs had a new manager, Martin Ho at the helm and a club with renewed optimism following a torrid campaign that they could achieve, with Holdt at the heart of it. After all, former manager Vilahamn quoted in March of this year saying that:
“from next season, she can be one of the best players in this league.”
A homegrown grounding
Olivia Holdt started her ladder to success in the lower tiers of danish women’s football in the Kvindeligaen, a Semi Professional League under the Danish Football Association Banner. From the age of 17 to 20, she had two seasons at VSK Aarhus before a move to Fortuna HjØrring in 2020, where new heights found her.
In the elite division of the Kvindeligaen, Holdt finished her stint at the northern danish club with 27 goals in 56 appearances and won the Danish Women’s League Player of the Year in 2021 before a move across the Baltic sea to Sweden catapulted her onto Tottenham’s radar.
A Sweden Success
A trip across to Sweden in 2022 for Holdt saw her join one of the Damallsvenskan’s most successful clubs in FC Rosengård; her first step into the world of professional football after a stellar youth career.
Moving already as a fully fledged Danish international having made her debut in 2021, but never actually having played professionally was an eyebrow raiser, but the winger soon showed why she was wanted by the 14 time league title winners. She helped the side from Malmo win the Swedish Cup and the League in her first season and third seasons at the club, whilst also adding a further four international appearances to her tally.
From Sweden to Spurs
As her stocks grew, Tottenham Hotspur decided to take a punt on the Dane, signing her in January 2024, with her fairytale debut away at Palace. Then followed a highly disappointing second half of the season for the team, in which she appeared 12 times in all competitions.
Holdt is capable of operating anywhere across the frontline and even dropping into central midfield, but under Martin Ho she has most often been deployed as an attacking midfielder behind either Bethany England or Cathinka Tandberg. In this role, she is tasked with linking midfield and attack, driving play forward, and contributing directly in the final third herself.
She has five goals and three assists in 15 league matches so far for Spurs, with her numbers totalling up to seven goals and four assists in 20 matches in both the league and cup.
Her finest goal in Lilywhite is, without question, her thunderous strike against West Ham United Women in January. Seizing on a loose pass from Tuva Hansen, she unleashed a first-time, right-footed effort that rocketed into the top corner. The goal completed a remarkable turnaround, ensuring Tottenham Hotspur Women left with all three points and further cemented their fifth-place standing in the table.
The Key Numbers
With 1,110 league minutes to her name, Holdt ranks fifth among attacking midfielders for total minutes played this season. She also places above the 50th percentile for both successful passes (77.5%) and long passes (65.4%), underlining the strength of her distribution.
Her passing remains one of the standout elements of her game, even if her assist tally currently stands at just three, a figure that arguably does not fully reflect her creative influence.
The big future
Martin Ho has overseen a marked transformation at Spurs this season, with Olivia Holdt among the chief beneficiaries. The Danish international will hope to carry her form into the final stretch of the season and crown her first full campaign in Lily-white as a roaring success, with her potential still to be fulfilled.
Olivia Holdt brings ‘X factor’ Tottenham have missed – BBC Sport
