2023-05-30 22:33:10
TASS, May 31. Spanish football club “Sevilla” and the Italian “Roma” on Wednesday will play in the final match of the Europa League. The meeting will be held in Budapest at the Puskas Ferenc Stadium and will start at 22:00 Moscow time.
The winner of the final match next season will take part in the group stage of the Champions League. Roma, before the final round of the Italian championship, takes sixth place in the standings, the team guaranteed itself participation in the play-off round of the Conference League qualification, if they win the final meeting of the national championship, they will enter the group stage of the Europa League. Sevilla is 11th in the table before the last round of the Spanish championship, the team at the end of the national season, at best, can qualify for the Conference League.
The winner of the UEFA Cup (the current name is the Europa League) as part of CSKA Moscow, Evgeny Aldonin, considers Sevilla the nominal favorite of the match. “Given the colossal experience that Sevilla has in the Europa League finals, I think that the team is nominally the favorite of the match,” Aldonin told TASS. – It is clear that Roma has [главный тренер Жозе] Mourinho, who has extensive experience of winning in various international tournaments (Mourinho won all five previous European Cup finals in which he participated – TASS note).Sevilla in the Europa League, like Real Madrid in the Champions League, feels like a fish in water, shows phenomenal results over the years, is a favorite regardless of the composition and whom they play against, very confident in themselves.
“We can say that this year there has been a revival of Italian football, after all, local clubs are represented in three finals. (“Inter” will play in the Champions League final, “Fiorentina” in the Conference League final – TASS note). There was a very serious crisis in Italy, we must not forget that the Italians are the last champions of Europe. Of course, the number of teams in the finals [еврокубков этого сезона] speaks for itself,” said Aldonin.
Roma will play in the European Cup final for the second year in a row, last season the team under the leadership of Mourinho won the first-ever Conference League draw, thanks to which they got into the Europa League. At the group stage of the second most important European Cup, the Italian team took second place in the quartet with the Spanish Betis, the Bulgarian Ludogorets and the Finnish HJK, and the Austrian Salzburg, the Spanish Real Sociedad, the Dutch Feyenoord and German Bayer.
Sevilla is the most titled team in the history of the Europa League, the Spanish club has six titles (2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020), he won all the finals of the tournament in which he participated. Sevilla started the current season in the Champions League, at the group stage the team became the third in the quartet with the English Manchester City, the German Borussia Dortmund and the Danish Copenhagen and advanced to the playoffs of the Europa League, where they defeated the Dutch PSV, Turkish Fenerbahce, English Manchester United and Italian Juventus.
Jose Mourinho
Second meeting
Roma and Sevilla will play each other for the second time in an official match. In the 2019/20 season, the teams met in the ⅛ final of the Europa League, the stage consisted of one match instead of two because of the coronavirus pandemic. The victory with a score of 2:0 was won by Sevilla, who later became the winner of the tournament.
The final match of the Europa League will be officiated by an English team of referees led by Anthony Taylor, Gary Baswick and Adam Nunn will be his assistants on the edge. Michael Oliver has been appointed as the fourth official, while Stuart Attwell, Chris Kavanagh and Bastian Danckert will be in charge of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system.
Sevilla have changed their head coach twice this season. In October 2022, Julen Lopetegui, the former coach of the Spanish national team and Real Madrid, left the team due to unsatisfactory results, and was replaced by the Argentinean Jorge Sampaoli, who led the team in the 2016/17 season. In March 2023, Sampaoli was sacked, at that time Sevilla was in 14th place in the Spanish championship. The Spaniard Jose Luis Mendilibar took the place of the Argentine, under his leadership Sevilla played 15 matches in which they won 8 wins, drew 5 times and lost 2 times.
Roma, if they win the Europa League, will become the sixth team in history to win two different European competitions in a row. Previously, Italian Milan (Cup Winners Cup – 1968, European Cup – 1969), English Liverpool (UEFA Cup – 1976, European Cup – 1977), Juventus (Cup Winners Cup – 1984, European Cup champions – 1985), the Portuguese Porto (UEFA Cup – 2003, Champions League – 2004), which was then led by Mourinho, and the English Chelsea (Champions League – 2012, Europa League – 2013).
“Open finals can only be with the participation of Barcelona and Manchester City, with the teams of Josep Guardiola, he is not afraid of anyone, he always plays on the attack,” Aldonin said. – I don’t think this final will be an overly open game, Sevilla can both attack and defend, all in a non-constant monotonous mode. That is, a certain arrhythmia exists. But it still seems to me that there will be a happy, interesting and fun finale with these participants. Cheerful in terms of oncoming attacks and results. I don’t think it’s worth just one goal scored.”
The current winner of the Europa League is the German “Eintracht” from Frankfurt am Main, from the Russian teams the trophy was won by CSKA (2005) and the St. Petersburg “Zenith” (2008). In the 2022/23 season, clubs from Russia do not play in European competitions due to the decision of the executive committee of the Union of European Football Associations.
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