New Delhi: The finalists of this year’s UEFA Europa League were finally decided after second-leg of Semi-Finals took place on late Thursday night. Manchester United defeated Roma 8-5 on aggregate to reach the final, whereas, Villareal went past Arsenal after 2-1 aggregate. Manchester United and Villareal will face each other in the final on May 26.
Manchester United
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reached his first major final as Manchester United manager even after losing 3-2 to AS Roma in the second leg of semi-finals. The final whistle at Stadio Olimpico took United to the final as they won 8-5 on aggregate.
Solskjaer had lost his previous four semi-finals during his reign at Old Trafford and despite Thursday’s defeat in Rome, Norwegian was able to take his side into the final. Credit goes to the last week’s commanding 6-2 win in the first leg at the Old Trafford Stadium.
United captain Harry Maguire told BT Sport, “It’s a great achievement to get to the final. We didn’t win the game and that’s disappointing but we did the hard work in the first leg. We started the game a bit edgy. It was end-to-end like basketball and we gave them too many chances in second half. Now we’ve got to go to the final and win it.”
Edinson Cavani opened the scoring at 39 minutes after a powerful finish in the top-right corner of the goal post. But, Roma found the net twice within three minutes in the starting of second half. Edin Dzeko and Bryan Cristante were the ones who scored to turn the game on its head.
But, thanks to David de Gea for a string of superb saves which kept United from going further behind. Cavani scored the second goal for the visitors as he headed the ball after a superb lofted pass from Bruno Fernandes. Roma scored again as the 19-year-old debutant Nicola Zalewski took a shot which took a big deflection from Alex Telles to beat De Gea. Although Roma won on the night, but it was Manchester United who were celebrating after the final whistle.
Villareal
The match between Villareal and Arsenal ended as a 0-0 draw on a nerve-wrecking night at the Emirates Stadium. But it was the the visiting manager Unai Emery who was celebrating after the final whistle as his team won the semi-finals 2-1 on aggregate.
The Spanish side have reached a European final for the first time in the club history. They had lost their four previous European semi-finals including one to Arsenal in the 2005-06 Champions League. But this time they protected their first-leg advantage of 2-1 with a very high discipline.
As for the Arsenal, they will not be playing European football next season for the first time in the last 25 years. They looked flat and never managed to exert any sustained pressure during the entire match. Manager of Arsenal, Mikel Arteta said after the match, “We are devastated, really disappointed.” Arteta faced a huge blow during the warm-up when Swiss midfielder Granit Xhaka got injured and had to be replaced by full back Kieran Tierney.
Arteta further said, “But we congratulate Villarreal. We created enough chances over the two ties.” The other interesting fact is Unai Emery was the manager of Arsenal before Arteta.
