Two giants met in the Europa League final: José Mourinho, who has not lost a single European Cup final, and Sevilla, also with a record without a single defeat, only in LE. The teams held out until a penalty shootout, which resulted in the strongest Spanish club – 4:1, and the cup for the seventh time in Seville.
In Spain they rejoice: the cup has come home!
Spanish newspaper covers
“This Seville is immortal”, writes the publication AS. – In what was going to be the worst season in 20 years, in which the team flirted with relegation from LaLiga for seven months, the club lifted the seventh Europa League Cup over their heads. Mendilibar’s players, the coach who took 62 years to win the highest award, suffered incalculable numbers having to equalize and endure a new penalty shootout, the third in a final of this type.
But like Glasgow 2007 and Turin 2014, the Cup chose you, Seville. Bono and Montiel helped, the goalkeeper who turned Morocco into a semifinalist in Qatar, and the Argentine who scored the decisive penalty in the World Cup final. This is not your fetish competition, Seville. You really are the fetish team of the Europa League, your Cup.
Losing in the final is like breaking up with a girl. This Sevilla starter has recently lost a Copa del Rey, as well as several Super Cups, minor tournaments, after which the mourning usually disappears after hours. But the Europa League, oh the Europa League. Teenage love, with which the club grew to greatness, with which they shared years of idyll. A love that could have been stolen by a Machiavellian Portuguese villain on the last day of May 2023. José Mourinho and his gypsies have threatened to kill a passion that refuses to die. What seems to be eternal. The seventh cup hit the mark. To your house.”
AS
“A lot of suffering endured to reach one of those finals that seem unattainable,” he writes. brand. “The team went through it, leaving the catacombs of the top division behind to take possession of what they long considered theirs. It’s a new lesson that in football, when all the pieces come together, bad things can turn good.
Seville smiles. He went from fear of relegation from the elite at the end of March to a sweet victory on the last day of May. Mendilibar did a miracle, keeping the champion, who lurked inside Sevilla. Coach Knight. The prize from him, the glory from him.”
Tactical analysis of the Europa League final:
Sevilla played better football than Roma! The penalty shootout is Mourinho’s credit
In Italy, they are sad and thank Roma for reaching the final.
Italian newspaper front pages
Sevilla takes the cup home, he says sadly La Gazetta dello Sport. – Endless disappointment. great bitterness Mourinho, the man who has never lost a final, this time was left with nothing in the penalty shootout, and Roma lost the opportunity for a historic double after winning the Conference League. For the seventh time on the board of honor of the Europa League Seville.
Pity about the almost 25,000 Roma fans who came to Budapest. Those who filled the Olimpico in Rome. Those who have been waiting at home for decades for the opportunity to go out and participate in one of those parties that stop in Rome. But it’s an even bigger pity because Sevilla didn’t beat Roma. And it’s a shame that the game started in the best way, but it wasn’t enough. Dybala’s tears at the end are the tears of all Romans, and they hurt.”
La Gazetta dello Sport
“Only applause”, writes the Roman edition the romanist. “This team, which also fought against the whole world from the first to the last game, still deserves the enormous gratitude and hugs that the magnificent public in Budapest gave them, despite a very bitter result for a thousand historical and other reasons” .
What happened in the penalty shootout?
Does Mourinho make fun of himself in the penalty shootout? Sevilla won the Europa League in spectacular fashion
“What are you going to tell him?” he argues. Corriere dello Sport. “They gave everything. Much more than there was strength in his body. The Moura boys finally arrived in Budapest exhausted, and the most important of them, Dybala, Pellegrini, Matic, went astray one by one. They (and we) endured 146 minutes of suffering: the best wasted chances, the crossbar in the last minutes, and then that sad epilogue in the form of a penalty shootout.
And what do you want to say to Mourinho, who dragged this team to where Barcelona, United, Juventus and other top clubs did not go? Everything seemed to be going well tonight. I swear, I believed it: Dybala’s appearance changed the balance, Roma had to generate energy to reach the penalty spot. But the team did not have this energy.
A loss worth winning, for all you’ve been through. It is important to thank Mourinho – for the competitiveness that he guaranteed to a team full of technical failures and empty, but strong-hearted and eager to succeed. The team is somehow unforgettable. What he has given to the city is extraordinary. The Roma fans will remember this final for a long time, mentally reviewing the images: Ibáñez’s split lip, Matic lying on the ground, Dybala sobbing… And a penalty. Fate joke. The cruelest.”
Corriere dello Sport
But obviously Mourinho will want to erase this night from memory. The Portuguese threw his medal to a fan before being very critical of the referee’s work in an interview on Movistar+ and Sky Italia: he said that referee Anthony Taylor had “some incidents in the match… but that’s it, it’s over.” .
“The truth is that we are very sad,” he said. We return home murdered by injustice. But it was a great game, a great finish. We had the best chance to win. But penalties are penalties, you have to score them, and Sevilla won.
And separately about Mourinho:
We ourselves came up with José Marino. Now the great aura has dissipated
The influence of the referees in our matches is what we are used to, but in the European final I did not expect it. Just look at Ibáñez’s mouth (they broke his lip. – Approx. “Championship”). You will understand everything when you see Lamela, who converted a penalty, but he had to be sent off; suffice it to say that the team that played the best in the first half ended up with three yellow cards. Pellegrini falls and they give him a yellow card, Ocampos pretends and there is no card. The referee appeared to be Spanish. Therefore, there are so many caveats.”
In the parking lot, Mourinho saw the refereeing team and could not contain himself. The journalists filmed a video of him swearing. This is what La Gazetta dello Sport writes about this incident: “Mourinho, when he saw the brigade approaching, he approached them and said:“ What a shame! Then he raised his voice and continued: “You are a shame [грёбаное]”. He repeated this several times. At that moment, Roberto Rosetti, president of the UEFA arbitration commission, approaches and tries to hug him to calm him down, but José pushes him away and says: “You agreed with them! “. And then he repeats something with obscene intercalations. That’s not all: the coach showed Rosetti the video on his phone, and then he again approached the referees and said: “Even Rosetti said that it was not a penalty, and you They couldn’t figure it out.”
Italians are wondering: can a specialist now be punished for this emotional outburst? It is not a locker room and it is not a room under the stands. There is a possibility, since everything is recorded on video. But UEFA will decide. And will they?
