The 11-day parade of the European cup finals began on Wednesday. The Conference League and Champions League endings are yet to come, but for now we have learned the name of the best club in the UEFA Europa League of the 2022/23 season: the players of the Spanish Sevilla became the winners of the tournament for the seventh time in history, beating the Italian Roma in a penalty shoot-out in the decisive match .
A match that will change historyPaphos is appropriate, because in Budapest we were waiting for a clash of two undefeated series. The first one belongs to Sevilla, the most titled team of the tournament, which since 2006 has played six times in the final of the UEFA Cup/LE and has never lost. But there is a second: Roma coach Jose Mourinho has five European Cup finals behind him (two in the Champions League, two in the LE and another in the LC), and after each of them the Portuguese posed for journalists with trophies.
Accordingly, today either the Spanish club or the Special will definitely lose their aura of invulnerability.
A little more about the «wolves» and the leader of the pack. Roma, who won the Conference League in 2022, can take the European Cup for the second season in a row. But what's even more interesting is that Mourinho could set a unique achievement: no coach has ever won the UEFA Cup/Europa League with three different teams. And the Portuguese is one step away from this.
Recall that in 2003 he made some noise with Porto, and in 2017 he made Manchester United fans happy.
UEFA Europa League31 May 2023 • Start at 22:00Closed (L) /uploads/2023/06/f642e6f05612ea78d02944111c92d5a0.png» />RomaItaly
55' • Gianluca Mancini (A)121' • Lucas Ocampos (M)121' • Eric Lamela (M)121 ' • Ivan Rakitic (M)121' • Gonzalo Montiel (M)
35' • Paulo Dybala (Gianluca Mancini)
121' • Brian Cristante (M)
See all goals
Sevilla failed the start … No matter how hard Mourinho tried to relax his opponent with words about the potential miss of the final by Paulo Dybala, the 2022 world champion as part of the Argentina national team, like the Italian Leonardo Spinazzola, came out at the start. It was they who created the first dangerous moment in the match: Dybala gave an accurate pass in the penalty area, but Spinazzola struck exactly at the Spanish goalkeeper Yassin Buna. And that's it. For half an hour, not a single flash in the game. Let's leave out the unpleasant clash of heads between Roger Ibanez and Nemanja Gudel in the second minute.
And then sparkled. In the 35th minute, the Roma players covered the Andalusians in the center of the field, after which Gianluca Mancini “cut out” exactly on Dybala. And the red-and-white Argentine, who recovered from the injury, did not forgive: he went one on one, rolled into the far corner, opened the scoring. br>
The Sevillas were remembered only for a header by Youssef En-Nesiri after a corner before the break … And a monstrous volley from Ivan Rakitic from outside the penalty area for the sixth added! The record holder for the number of matches played in the main stage of the LE, Rui Patricio, pulled himself into line, but did not help out.
But the bar helped out.
…but the Spaniards put the squeeze onAnd now understand how lucky «Seville» and its helmsman Jose Luis Mendilibar: «Roma» decided to score in their own net! 37-year-old captain Jesus Navas completed the serve, after which the ball hit Mancini's thigh — an unsuccessful rebound, no complaints against the goalkeeper.
The Sevilla striker with the name Own Goal has three goals in this draw of the EL. Only En-Nesiri has more (4).
Andalusians perked up, but again a little didn't miss. At the gates of the Spaniards there was an episode that recalled the climax of the NHL match, when hockey players piled on the opponent's gate. It's the same here: «Roma» played a set piece, and in a heap-small «wolves» could not push the ball into the net.
Endless yellow cards and a rightly canceled penalty, insane support for the snow-white Sevilla sector and new falls in the penalty area … The hardest job fell to the English referee Anthony Taylor, whose decisions infuriated Mourinho and the Italians. But the Romans were no less infuriated by bad luck: how did the substitute Andrea Belotti miss on the 83rd after a beautiful wall throw from Lorenzo Pellegrini ?! Buna saved, touching the ball with his fingertips, and moved the confrontation into extra time (which could not have happened, punish the Andalusians Patricio for an uncertain exit from the gate in the last minute).
Assist, own goal, fatal miss Extra times went with many substitutions, but almost without moments (we still note the last attack of Roma with a corner) — the Ferenc Puskas Stadium in Budapest and the crowded Stadio Olimpico in Rome, where fans at large they watched the final on the screens, did not subside and waited for what many football fans get high from … The penalty shootout, so familiar to the record holders of the LE in the 2014 final against Benfica. And the Moroccan goalkeeper of Sevilla Boon, who at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar never conceded from Spain in the 1/8 finals and became the second goalkeeper in history to remain “dry” in the penalty shoot-out at the world championships. We saw this for the first time in 2006, when the Ukrainian Oleksandr Shovkovskiy was enchanting.
Bunu has become a hero even today. Outplayed Mancini, who turned into the main anti-hero of the match, and emotionally crushed Ibanez, who hit the post.
Patricio rescued only once, but had to kill … The goalkeeper came out of the gate and hit the ball against the rules. On the second attempt, Gonzalo Montiel was accurate — the Argentinean scored the decisive penalty in the World Cup final in December, and now put an end to the decisive battle of the LE.
- Penalty shootout: 4-1 in favor of Sevilla (1:1 after 120 minutes), which became the winner of the Europa League. In terms of the number of victories in European competition in the 21st century, the team (2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2023) overtook Real Madrid, which has six victories in the Champions League this century.
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Still undefeated Mourinho, who did not pick up the key to the main riddle of LE. How to beat Sevilla in the final of the enchanted tournament? The UEFA Cup (let's call it from old memory) does not fly to Italy again. The paths have been diverging for 24 years: in 1999, Parma won the tournament with young Gianluigi Buffon at the gate.
Seven times — congratulations! And their coach Mendilibar — applause. Having joined Sevilla during the current season, the Spanish specialist helped the club climb out of the bottom of the La Liga standings, take another trophy in Europe and reach the group stage of the Champions League of the 2023/24 season. Could a little-known coach dream about this when he prepared Athletic for the matches of the long-forgotten Intertoto Cup?