Sevilla manager Jose Luis Mendilibar was ‘surprised’ by how comfortable the Europa League specialists found it during their 3-0 quarter-final win over Manchester United on Thursday night.
United weren’t at the races from start to finish. After a promising first 20 minutes or so in the first leg at Old Trafford, where we led by 2 goals at the time, the Reds completely fell apart and wasted a good opportunity to progress in the Europa League.
The Reds have played more matches than any other club in Europe’s top divisions this season and it is starting to show wear and tear on some of the players.
“We came from an awkward situation in Manchester, where we drew 2-2 without doing things right,” said Mendilibar, as per TribalFootball.
Sevilla took advantage of costly errors at the back from David de Gea and Harry Maguire. Both players have been subject to criticism since the disappointing defeat, but nobody in the team performed well. That said, Antony showed glimpses, but nothing more than that.
“People believed that we could do it. In the end we did it. It’s surprising for us to win a game against Manchester United without struggling and with such forcefulness. It’s not easy.”
Disappointing end to our European campaign
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Seville was beautiful this week and it was just a shame that the result couldn’t go our way, but nobody could complain about the 3-0 drubbing. It was deserved and we can only hope that Erik ten Hag will have a better squad next season when we hope to be competing in the Europa League.
Their manager is expecting a tougher game next time out against Juventus when Sevilla attempt to make another Europa League final.
“(Juventus) will be more difficult,” he added.
“Juventus is stronger as a team, different from United. They don’t have as much speed, but it will be more difficult.”
Juventus secured qualification into this year’s Europa League semi-finals following a 1-1 draw against Sporting CP at the Jose Alvalade Stadium.
Former United target Adrien Rabiot’s early striker inside 10 minutes was cancelled out by Marcus Edward’s penalty kick, yet Federico Gatti’s winner in the first leg proved vital as the Bianconceri progressed 2-1 on aggregate.
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