This time – through blood, sweat and penalty kicks.

One of the major questions of modern football has been resolved. Sevilla’s magic was stronger than that of Jose Mourinho in the final. At least in the Europa League. In other tournaments you still need to check. Sevilla reached their seventh final of this tournament and won it for the seventh time. For Mourinho, who faced the Spaniards with Roma, it was his sixth European Cup final. He has won the previous five. But here I had to capitulate. Even if the battle turned out to be noble.

Roman assault

From the very beginning of the match, one could expect such a situation where Sevilla would start putting pressure and Roma would rely on counter-attacks and deep defense. So it would be more typical for these teams in their current state. But we saw a different picture. In it, Sevilla got off to a somewhat shaky start and failed to really get close to Rui Patricio’s gates.

Overall, the percentage of accurate passes in the first half of the match was low for both teams. There was an abundance of fighting, martial arts on the field, which became one of the main storylines of the entire match. As a result: lots of yellow cards, emotional reactions that led to regular character warnings even on the bench, plus an insane amount of stoppage time for each half. Looking ahead, let’s say that in four halves, only in the form of stoppage time, the teams played 25 minutes – this is almost two extra times in all respects. Unsurprisingly, by the end of the meeting, many fell.

But let’s go back to the starting point. It was capped off by a spectacular Roma goal, made by Cristante’s selection in the center of the field, Mancini’s more intelligent pass and Dybala’s excellent implementation. Paulo was generally good, even if he was more expected as a substitute, given that the Argentine still doesn’t have the energy for the whole game. But the 60-odd minutes of him starting from the beginning worked out perfectly.

At the stoppage with Dybala’s goal, Roma approached with a clear superiority in the game. He overtook Sevilla, landed two accurate shots, allowing the Spaniards to execute only one inaccurate in 35 minutes.

The Leverkusen scenario didn’t work

But in the last minutes of the first half it became clear that it was not so easy to sink this Sevilla. Suddenly he found the strength to increase the speed of movement, the ball was already confidently walking at the feet of Sevilla, who deftly dodged the pressure of the Romans and created sharpness. Having inflicted one blow in 35 minutes, Sevilla scored four more times before the end of the half and could even level the score even before the break: Rakitic loudly hit the post with a long-range shot.

During the break, Mendilibar made a clear reshuffle, made two substitutions, which made the creative component of the Sevilla game more stable. Suso and Lamela fit into the fight much better than Torres and Gil, who started it. And “Roma” from the beginning of the second half frankly slipped into the replay of the second leg of the semi-final with “Bayer”. Then, we recall, the Romans spent the whole match at a dead end in defense and miraculously did not miss, retaining the minimal advantage obtained in the home match.

But Sevilla did not repeat Bayer’s mistakes and equalized already in the 55th minute. The Spaniards, who had already switched to banal pushbacks without trying to intercept in front of Roma, easily turned towards their goal, forcing them to cuddle, which finally ended with Mancini’s own goal from a Navas cross.

The gap between goals looks terrifying for Roma. 8-0 shooting in favor of Sevilla, 79 per cent of possession for the Spaniards with an accuracy of 84 per cent, and Roma had less than half of the passes that turned out to be accurate.

Battle of the teeth

It’s usually difficult to go back to the old style of play after this, but Roma tried. The Romans really turned the pressure back on, they began to attack more intensely. On the other hand, Sevilla had already strengthened their game, morally and technically, they weren’t going to go back to the model with which they had started the match.

And this scythe attack on a carved stone sparks the field. The battle for survival has already begun, as the game has proved to be long, exhausting, extremely expensive physically and emotionally. Every joint was not only hurt, but also psychologically emasculated, as all were vigorously met by both sides and vigorously argued.

The pitch was littered with yellow cards, and the Budapest air was filled with the shouts of players and the din from the crowded stands, to which fans already “warmed up” from the battle in the city arrived. Substitutions have already been made not so much to introduce diversity and tactical adjustments, as happened in Sevilla’s first stop, but to refresh the squad to replace those who can’t stand it. It looked more like a long-distance race of two completely equal rivals, two champions, each of whom tries everything not to stop, is ready even in an unconscious state to move forward, but only to get ahead of the enemy.

Inconsistent Taylor and fast VAR

In this match could play the factor officiating. England referee Anthony Taylor could annoy some with the way he works. He at first allowed martial arts, then suddenly began to break into frequent yellow cards, realizing that the degree of fighting was too high. But for exactly the same reason, he refused this bar at one point. This not the most consistent approach might raise questions. And for some fouls they definitely stayed with the parties.

However, the cancellations, oddly enough, did not happen. No one has been hit with yellow cards twice in one game. And in a couple of key episodes, where there was talk of a penalty, the VAR clearly worked. We won’t even take Gudel’s high leg moments against Abraham or the ball in Fernando’s hand in the box. An important episode was the appointment of a penalty against Roma, which Taylor canceled after the intervention of the VAR. It took the referee a little over a minute to appoint, communicate with the VAR, go to the monitor and reverse the decision. Unfathomable speed not just for judging RPLbut also in other leagues.

Another important episode is Patricio’s exit from the tape before Montiel’s shot during the penalty shoot-out. Rui repelled the Argentine’s strike, saving Roma’s hope, but it turned out that he had broken the rules. And Montiel interrupted even better, bringing Sevilla a victory.

penalty

Yes, it was the penalty shoot-out that finally decided the fate of the trophy. Someone will have questions to Mourinho about choosing who took the shots. For Mancini and Ibanez, for example, they were the first penalties. And they didn’t score. In addition, they were clearly more tired than many, having plowed this insanely long and difficult match from the kick-off.

But in these cases the coach relies not only on the freshness of the players and on some purely statistical indicators. Attitude and psychological readiness are important. With this, Sevilla turned out to be better. In its composition, Ocampos, Lamela, Rakitic and Montiel have made their attempts. In Rome, only Cristante turned out to be like this.