Five talking points from Sevilla 1-1 Roma (4-1 on pens)
Sevilla won their fifth Europa League in ten years as they defeated Roma 4-1 on penalties after a tightly-contested 1-1 stalemate.
The winning penalty by Gonzalo Montiel — who also scored the winning spot-kick for Argentina at the World Cup — was originally missed but VAR decided there was an encroachment and he eventually tucked it away to deny Jose Mourinho a historic sixth European trophy.
The Spanish side have now won a stunning seven Europa League titles.
In normal time, Paulo Dybala’s strike in the 35th minute was cancelled out by a Gianluca Mancini own goal and the game remained deadlocked in a scrappy spectacle.
Here are five talking points from a tense final in Budapest.
Sevilla do it again
Sevilla have once again come up trumps to claim yet another Europa League trophy.
The Spanish side have now won seven — an incredible record which means they are four clear of the next best side Internazionale, who have three in their cabinet.
Nervionenses’ stranglehold on this competition is only growing, with their European pedigree now at an all-time high.
A disappointing season in LaLiga means little now as they will continue their European exploits in the Champions League next season — every club in the Europa League will now pray they don’t drop down.
Mourinho’s run ends
Jose Mourinho’s defiant winning streak in European finals has come to an end.
The Portuguese manager had won every final before tonight and he ran Sevilla all the way to penalties but Gianluca Mancini and Roger Ibanez missed their decisive spot-kicks.
His disappointment at losing this record was clear as he gave his runners up medal to a fan in the crowd.
Mourinho’s side now have to play Spezia at the weekend with Europa League qualification in their hands, but they could still slip into the Europa Conference League.
Second-half Sevilla
Sevilla didn’t manage to lay a glove on the Roma backline in the first-half but after the restart they looked like a different team.
In order to give his team more attacking thrust, Jose Luis Mendilibar decided to take off Bryan Gil and Oliver Torres — who were mostly ineffective — and bring on Suso and Erik Lamela.
The duo gave the side a lot more threat, receiving the ball in central and wide positions to create overloads.
Sevilla upped the tempo decisively and grabbed a vital equaliser which swung the final in their direction.
Dybala difference
The signing of Dybala was viewed as a coup and the Argentine’s goal in the first-half proved why.
After an evenly-balanced first 30 minutes, Roma won the ball back in the middle of the park and put Dybala through one-on-one with the goalkeeper — the 29-year-old took one touch before slotting the ball away well.
It was a rare moment of calm in what was a final full of chaos.
Due to recent injury problems, he had to come off in the 68th minute — Roma lost a lot of attacking firepower as a result which lessened their control of the game.
Fiery battle
As expected, the game was an extremely fiery affair.
There were 13 yellow cards awarded in the game which is the highest ever total in a Europa League fixture.
Rather summing up the spectacle, there were twice as many fouls (15) as there were shots (7) in the first-half.
Mourinho was typically a menace on the sidelines, constantly bemoaning at the fourth official and referee Anthony Taylor and even picked up a yellow card himself in extra-time.
This was backed up by the Spanish side, who were just as intense — especially when they had a penalty ruled out by VAR in the 75th minute.
