Manchester United Ends Another Trophyless Season, Villarreal Wins First Major Silverware

Europa League Final – Villarreal 1-1 Manchester United (penalties 11-10).

Villarreal wins their first major title in club’s history at the end of never-ending penalty shootouts. Every player on the pitch scored their try as Man United’s goalkeeper took his chance but ultimately missed his penalty.

Manchester United fails to win a trophy for the 7th consecutive season when Jose Mourinho led United to the UEL title against Ajax Amsterdam. 

Coach Solskjaer on the heartbreaking loss:

I’ve been delighted with the effort, desire, determination of all the players,. I can’t fault them at all and we’ve probably done as well as anyone could have imagined. So yeah, those of us who are here now need to do better, we need to work better, work harder, cleverer.

We just couldn’t create enough chances to win the game. When they have [Pau] Torres and [Raul] Albiol in there to make crosses it is always going to be difficult. We needed to play our way into the box quicker.”

De Gea misses his try

Every player on the field got to take a penalty. Villarreal goalkeeper, Geronimo, converted his attempt and then stopped David De Gea’s penalty to seal the victory and the biggest trophy the LaLiga club ever won. 

You go through every scenario, of course and it has crossed my mind in the build-up to the game but we were confident in David. We prepared but, in a penalty shoot-out, anything can happen in those, so I stuck with the keeper who played all the game.

I have got to say that the penalty shoot-out was high quality but we didn’t do enough in 120 minutes to score more goals. And that is the disappointing bit; that we built pressure, that we had moments when we felt that if we could just kick on a little bit now, then you can get the goal, but we just couldn’t.”

16 out 16 for LaLiga clubs

This an improbable stat as LaLiga clubs have beaten Premier League clubs in the last 16 Champions League and Europa League finals combined. The dominance of Spanish football in Europe continues despite an all-English UEFA Champions League final this year between Manchester City and Chelsea.