The Europa League semi-final are nearly upon us, so here’s the latest news on the four Europa League semi-final contenders, Manchester United, their opponents Sevilla, Inter Milan and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Manchester United
Following a 1-0 extra time win over FC København and an underwhelming 2-1 victory over LASK, Manchester United have a formidable challenge ahead of them in the shape of record winners Sevilla.
Manchester United will have serious belief that they can progress from the Europa League semi-final and go onto win the competition, let’s not forget they recently won the 2017 edition of the UEFA Europa League, beating Ajax in the final.
Manchester United will be looking to avenge their previous game against Sevilla, where they were dumped out of the Champions League in embarrassing fashion in the 2017/18 season.
What are the members from the Manchester United camp saying?
‘‘Getting to semi-finals isn’t good enough for this club,” Harry Maguire stated.
”Like I said, now we’ve got this far we need to go and really push and improve on the semi-finals that we’ve reached already and take it another step”.
The Red Devils have also been labelled as favourites to lift the trophy.
Sevilla
Sevilla are in fine form in this year’s Europa League with a dominant 2-0 win over Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s Roma and a solid win over fellow English club Wolves. Manchester United will have to be wary of Sevilla, the Spanish side are kings of the Europa League.
Sevilla are record five time winners of the UEFA Europa League and boast a magnificent Europa League record having only been eliminated in one of their past 20 knockout ties in the competition, losing 6-5 on aggregate to Slavia Prague in the last 16 in 2018-19. Source – BBC. This strong knockout record will surely hand Manchester United reasons for concern.
Former Manchester City player and current Sevilla captain Jesús Navas speaking about the job on their hands said,
”We know they’re tough opponents and it’ll be difficult. And that
”The important thing is that we go into [Sunday’s game] with all the hope in the world of reaching the final. We’ll be going all out”.
Inter Milan
A lot of Inter Milan’s personal will be well known to Manchester United fans. Former players Alexis Sanchez, Ashley Young, once sought after target Christian Eriksen, Victor Moses, former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte and perhaps most notably Romelu Lukaku.
It’s been widely reported that Alexis Sanchez is injured and will miss the upcoming Europa League semi-final against Shakhtar Donetsk and a potential final.
With many predicting and expecting Inter Milan to get to the final, it’s important to remember this will be a tricky contest for the Nerazzurri against Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk. Manchester United fans will be keeping one eye on this match, should they beat Sevilla.
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Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar Donetsk are the dark horses of the competition, they’ve flown under the radar so far and many people are casting them aside in their predictions for this match. They’ve comfortably beaten Wolfsburg and Basel on their road to the semi-final but are still viewed as outsiders.
Shakhtar Donetsk do have a pedigree in the Europa League. Like the previous three mentioned clubs they have won the Europa League before, when it was previously known as the UEFA Cup (they won the 2009 final).
You would imagine Shakhtar Donetsk are the more preferable opponent choice for Manchester United if both sides do win in their respective games.
Whether Manchester United can beat Sevilla, and who their opponents could be in the final are yet to be determined. Can Ole win his first major trophy with the Red Devils? Time will only tell which of the four teams will emerge victorious, but that’s the latest on Manchester United and the Europa League.
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