England dominate men’s football in Europe at the moment: Manchester City and Chelsea are settling in to win the Champions League and Manchester United are battling for the Europa League. Villarreal brings a bit of Spanish spice into an English stew.
It was like the spring of 2019 when Liverpool defeated Tottenham in the Champions League final and Chelsea beat Arsenal in the Europa League final. This means that all four final clubs were British.
But one team could not stand the pressure with the result that “only” three teams are from the Premier League, while La Liga has one representative in the finals.
Or, as the Times wrote: Only Arsenal failed the Premier League“.
Manchester United had already secured a ticket to the Europa League final in one form or another, beating Roma 6-2 in the first meeting.
Because of the end result of the first match, the second match was a purely formality as Roma got some corrections to their cuts with a 3-2 win.
Cavani got chances
United scored the first goal of the match through Edinson Cavani, who fired a powerful shot outside the penalty area.
Eden Deco equalized with a header for Roma and Brian Cristante put the Italians ahead after a few minutes, a lead that lasted less than ten minutes until Cavani scored again.
Cavani had at least twice as many goals, but he had to be content with two goals and, most importantly, take the last place with his team Manchester United.
In the 83rd minute, the visitors almost scored an equalizer after Nicola Zalewski came up the middle, but his kick went wide.
Manu coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer He was pleased with the team’s last place, although Thursday’s game left much to be desired.
– It feels good to be in the final. We played a very good run at Old Trafford which kept us going even more. But I am not satisfied with our loss, especially the way we played in the second half.
The match could have ended easily 8-6 against Roma. It was a strange match. We’ve given the ball the number of times, but luckily we have one of the best goalkeepers in the world, Solskjaer says of David de Gea.
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If Manchester’s last place is almost ready even before kick-off, the same cannot be said for the semi-finalists. Villarreal won 2-1 at home, but now the match was played on English soil.
The home team had a little more possession of the ball and several shots, but Villarreal managed to keep Arsenal away from the distance. On the scoreboard, the score was 0-0 after 90 minutes, meaning that Villarreal qualified for the Europa League final with a score of 2-1.
With the away goal rule, Arsenal went ahead with a 1-0 victory, and of course there would have been one, say, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s shot at the post. But this time I got out, and finally Arsenal came out.
For Villarreal, this is the first time the club has qualified for the final of the European Club Championships.
It was certainly close before too – the 2004, 2011 and 2016 Europa League semi-finals, as well as the 2006 Champions League semi-finals – but now the club is for the first time among the top two teams in the Europa League. The second best club championship in Europe.
The final will be held in Gdansk, Poland on May 26.
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