Europa League Villarreal win their first final in London
Villarreal is the uncrowned king of the Europa League. The yellow team accumulates records in the competition but the most important thing is missing, the title. To achieve this, he signed last summer the coach who knows best how to win it. A
Unai Emery
call him Mister Europa League by these three consecutive finals won with Sevilla, a milestone not reached by anyone else. He played another for Arsenal and today will be his fifth, a
figure that no coach has reached in the same UEFA club competition.
Illustrious such as Alex Ferguson, Carlo Ancelotti, Marcello Lippi and Miguel Muñoz stayed in four Champions or European Cup finals.
Emery is, perhaps, what Villarreal lacked to take that definitive step in a competition in which the Castellón team has the
record for points in the group stage (106), for goals (151), for matches played (88) and that of victories (49).
Figures that have improved in an almost perfect season in continental competition. The yellow ones were leaders of their group ahead of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Sivasspor and Qarabag after adding five victories and a draw. Almost as impeccable has been his passage through the qualifying rounds, where he got rid of two teams from the Champions League such as Salzburg and Dynamo Kiev before also accounting for a Dinamo Zagreb that arrived after giving the bell eliminating Tottenham from Mourinho.
Three crosses ended with six victories before reaching the semi-final with a taste of revenge against Arsenal, which this time could not stop the Castellón team from reaching the final. With the victory at La Cerámica and the Emirates draw, Villarreal is planted in the final in Gdansk
undefeated
this season
in the Europa League
and in a position to match the feat of Chelsea, the only team that has lifted the trophy (in 2019) without losing a single game.
In addition, Emery's team has been able to keep a
clean sheet in their last five outings in Europe
. The great challenge, for Gero Rulli, will be to achieve it tonight against Manchester United with offensive arguments such as
Cavani, Rashford or Bruno Fernandes, the main threat tonight
given his records this season (28 goals and 17 assists in 56 games). The Portuguese, like practically the rest of the starters at United tonight, rested last Sunday in the closing of the English league, a luxury that Emery could not afford with a place for the Europa League at stake.
The eleven that played against Real Madrid could be exactly the same that Villarreal present tonight in the most important game in its history.
With
Chukwueze ruled out,
the question remains whether
Foyth
will enter
on the right side after missing the last six games due to injury.
The Argentine participated yesterday with normality in training at the Gdansk Stadium, which started with a talk from Emery to an embraced squad forming a circle in the center of the field under the rain that fell on the Polish city.
The coach will also have to decide between
Yeremy
and
Moi Gómez
to complete the medullary, while at the top it is
Bacca
and
Alcácer
who fight to accompany
Gerard
.
At
United
, the great executioner of the Spanish teams this season (he
eliminated Real Sociedad in the round of 32 and Granada in the quarterfinals
),
Solskjaer
remained in the dark about whether it will be
De Gea
or
Henderson
who will occupy the goal and also about the presence of
Maguire
, who has a difficult time playing.
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Know more
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