D-SSELDORF, Germany (AP) – What is the objective of the Europa League? Seville and Inter Milan have many other answers to this question.
If Inter wins Friday’s final in Germany, it would be a vital step in his attempt to dethrone Juventus in Italy and as a Champions League heavyweight. But Seville has a special affection for a festival that has won five times, more than any other.
“This is a festival that is close to our hearts, which we love more than anyone,” Sevilla’s sporting director Ramón “Monchi” Rodríguez told The Associated Press. “And players can feel it. It was the festival that helped us grow, that helped us make a bigger club, which helped us become more famous. It was the festival that filled the club with energy.”
Seville is the ideal club for a vision of the Europa League as a festival that offers significant European matches for clubs that have the monetary influence to fight for national titles or the Champions League. He won three in a row from 2014 to 2016.
“If you ask me, I’d rather play in the Champions League, because it’s the most vital club festival in the world, the one with the highest prestige,” Monchi said. “But obviously the Europa League meant a lot to us. We don’t see it as anything less important.”
Seville’s ambitions have been limited by the overwhelming strength of Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain. Excluding the Europa League, Sevilla has won a trophy since the 2010 Copa del Rey and finished among the two most sensitive in La Liga since 1957.
Before his way to the final, Sevilla gave his players six days off after the end of the season on July 19. Turns out it was worth it.
The team played more intensely than their matches against Roma in the quarter-finals, Wolverhampton in the quarter-finals and a 2–1 win over Manchester United in the semi-finals. The Italian and English leagues ended after La Liga.
“At first we thought it would be a disadvantage to stay for 15 to 20 days without competition,” Monchi said. “We couldn’t play friendly matches. And other groups kept betting and didn’t have to disconnect. But I don’t think it’s transparent whether it helped or not. It’s not something we know for sure.”
Inter did not have such a break after their last Serie A match on 1 August, but they beat supposedly cooler war games like Getafe and Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League tournament. Alexis Sanchez is in doubt of an injury in the final after the Chilean striker was an unused replacement for the semi-final win over Shakhtar Donetsk due to a détente in the hamstring.
Inter played four last fours in eight years in the 1990s in what was then known as the UEFA Cup. Inter has won three, the highest recently in 1998, with Brazilian legend Ronaldo scoring in the final 3-0 win over Lazio.
Inter’s boost to the latter was carried out through the “LuLa” association of Romelu Lukaku and Lautaro Martínez, who scored twice each in Inter’s 5-0 against Shakhtar Donetsk in the semi-finals, leading Inter to a club record of 111 goals. for the season.
At the end of a point, Juventus, Champions League champions in Serie A, underlined Antonio Conte’s ambition to join the elite European club organisation and the rally will be firmly in the Champions League next season, not the Europa League. Winning on Friday would continue with a 10-year effort to regain lost ground.
Since José Mourinho’s Inter beat Bayern Munich to win the Champions League in 2010, Inter has gone through difficult seasons, with no European standings in 3 of those years. The investment mix of the Chinese owner of the Suning Group, the goals of “LuLa” and Conte’s Education has reversed the trend this season.
Shakhtar’s defeat made Inter the first Italian club to succeed in the top since Parma’s 1999 victory. Since Porto beat Braga in an entirely Portuguese final in 2011, each and every Europa League winners come from La Liga or the English Premier League. .
There is a spot for the Champions League organization level for the Europa League winner, but Sevilla and Inter have already qualified in their leagues, so the position has been assigned to the French team Rennes.
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Azzoni back from Lisbon, Portugal.
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