Sevilla coach Jose Luis Mendilibar was ‘surprised’ by how comfortable the Europa League specialists found it during their 3-0 quarter-final second leg victory over Manchester United on Thursday night.
If anyone has a metatarsal bone they fancy donating, then just sent it over. In the absence of Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varane, that old Harry Maguire – David de Gea double act corpsed all over the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stage. If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry.
Either one or the other was responsible for all three of the goals Sevilla scored during a torturous second leg; De Gea and Maguire making an almighty mess in the build up a highly-avoidable opener.
It was a moment which must have given Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, presumably tuning in from half the world away in Scandinavia, a nasty cast of PTSD.
“We came from an awkward situation in Manchester, where we drew 2-2 without doing things right,” smiled a victorious Mendilibar, via TribalFootball; his Sevilla side profiting from two more De Gea errors, Spaniard’s many faults there for all to see on a brutal Andalusian evening.
“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.”
Manchester United crash out of Europa League vs Sevilla
It was one of those nights where incompetency seemed to spread like a virus. Even Casemiro and Christian Eriksen, so impressive since their summer arrivals, were not immune from the symptoms. Coughing up possession again and again as the spectre of the suspended Bruno Fernandes hung ominously over a Manchester United performance lacking in leadership, drive and sheer backbone.
Not even the returning Marcus Rashford could drag his team-mates out of a hole of their own making.
Sevilla, six time Europa League winners since the turn of the Century, will now face Juventus in the semi-finals. Mendilibar accepts that Juve do not possess the same explosive pace as Erik ten Hag’s United. But he expecting a more solid, more collective display from Max Allegri’s side.
“(Juventus) will be more difficult,” adds the former Eibar coach.
“Juventus is stronger as a team, different from United. They don’t have as much speed, but it will be more difficult.”
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