Today’s Europa League final in Gdansk, Poland is a clash between clubs from different football strata. The undisputed continental grand Manchester United meets in it with Villarreal, which is not trying to claim such a status. However, there are reasons not to consider him an obvious outsider. This is both an excellent performance of the Spanish team in the current European Cup season, and its coach Unai Emery, for whom the Europa League final is all too familiar territory.
The alignment in the first European Cup final of the season (the second – the main one – will take place on Saturday, when Manchester City and Chelsea will fight for victory in the Champions League in Porto) seems to be obvious. More than four fifths of the respondents to a simple poll on the official website of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), offering to choose the winner from two participants in the match, voted, of course, for Manchester United.
All clear. As brands, football values outside the current context, these clubs are generally incomparable. Goliath vs. David. The giant of European football with a gorgeous history and an application, which Transfermarkt estimates at € 716.75 million, the cost of a decent league level, against a modest one who never swung to the status of a frontman even local, with an application about three times cheaper.
But the actual context does not seem to cross out these ideas with a bold line. Manchester United have been, in principle, not bad this season. Slightly embarrassed in the Champions League, finishing third in the group behind PSG and Leipzig, but if we take the national championship, then there are signs of overcoming the crisis, which has been dragging on since 2013, since the retirement of the lumpy coach Alex Ferguson, perhaps clearer than usual. The team played cheerfully, the young mentor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who until recently was perceived more as an “intermediate” option, managed it well for the period until they found someone better. The result of the championship was the second place after the almost impeccable neighbor Manchester City. And it is quite a success for Manchester United by today’s standards. Well, in parallel, he confidently moved forward in the European Cup, albeit the second most important, having beaten, by the way, on the way to the decisive meeting, Real Sociedad, Milan, Roma.
In the case of Villarreal, his position in the Spanish championship is immediately striking – only seventh, two lines lower than in the previous one. This is not even the zone of the Europa League, but of the Conference League, the third European Cup, which UEFA launches next season, the European Cup “for the poor”. To get rid of him, however, you can, by winning the Europa League, for this you get a ticket to the Champions League. But obviously, for such a “Villarreal” this task is practically impossible. Especially since the last calendar month, the results were so-so: in his championship he was inferior to Real Madrid with Barcelona, and Alaves with Celta. Manchester United also played unevenly in May, but it was an uneven play by a team that understands that the silver will not go away from it, and the strength for the Europa League must be preserved.
But not everything is so simple. And those who believe that the Manchester players in Poland are doomed to win should still know something about Villarreal. Well, yes, in the Spanish Championship, he did not finish too high. But he scored 60 goals – only Atletico, Real and Barcelona more, and the opponent’s defense is weakened by the injury of Harry Maguire, an overly important figure for her. Well, yes, in comparison with the Manchester squad, full of sonorous surnames – David de Gea and Paul Pogba, Edinson Cavani and Bruno Fernandes, Fred and Marcus Rashford – the Spanish squad looks pale. But in it there are already quite noticeable and ready, perhaps, to thunder characters. Gerard Moreno showed performance in the season at the level of the best strikers in Europe, hitting other people’s gates in various competitions more than four dozen times. In terms of productivity in the organization of the game, Dani Parejo was not inferior to the best passer. Defender Pau Torres, who, like Moreno, was included in the Spanish national team for the upcoming European Championship, according to various English sources, was interested in the same Manchester United.
And Villarreal somehow played too well specifically in the Europa League, as if they were betting exclusively on it – not a single defeat in 14 matches! In the semifinals, Arsenal experienced terrible discomfort in matches with him, which in the hierarchy of the English Premier League, of course, is lower than Manchester United, but also great with opportunities.
Villarreal also has a special mentor – Unai Emery. In football, apparently, there is no specialist for whom the Europa League final would be such a familiar territory. With “Sevilla”, which he fell into after a quick dismissal from “Spartak” under the legendary phrase of Artem Dziuba, who was not yet drawn to the future pivotal figure of the Russian national team about the “coach”, Emery got to him three times in a row. And three times in a row he took the upper hand over his rivals, demonstrating the team’s cool “eyeliner” to the most important match. By the third of the finals – in 2016 against the English “Liverpool” – “Sevilla” came in the status of just the seventh club in Spain. Nothing, he did not interfere with her at all.
Although those who are worried about Manchester United probably prefer to remember that there was another Europa League final in Unai Emery’s biography, in 2019, when he was at the head of Arsenal. And he was smashed – 4: 1 – by Chelsea. So Emery’s tricks are in charge.
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