Maybe you think that there are three more games to be played in this year’s edition of Europa League, until we reach the winner. The second-leg is played tonight, and the champion for this season will be determined on May 31st. But you are wrong. The champion is already known and it’s Roma! If you still don’t believe, just ask Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese expert, who already has two Champions Leagues and two Europa League trophies in his CV, has his own merits for winning trophies.⏪ @bayer04fussball lifted the UEFA Cup on this day in 1988 🏆Will they do it again in 2023?#OTD || #UEL pic.twitter.com/7tUcZMGgN5— UEFA Europa League (@EuropaLeague) May 18, 2023 His Roma will face Bayer Leverkusen in Germany tonight and will defend the 1-0 win from the first game, but to Mourinho, his team has already won the trophy and here is how:„If I did not have the ambition of trying to win, it would be very easy for me to say now that we have already won the Europa League. Because if the Europa League is for the teams that started this competition, then Roma have won. However, that is just theory, our objective is to win. We had a tough group stage with Real Betis, then a play-off with a Champions League side Real Sociedad, who are already qualified for next season’s Champions League, and a Feyenoord side that has already won the title in the Netherlands. So it was a tough journey for us” explained the Portuguese, pointing out that other semi-finalists came from the Champions League.Campos’ first choice for Paris – Jose MourinhoEven thou other semifinalists are Italian giants Juventus, or the multiply winner Seville (six Europa League titles), bookmakers are making Roma favorites for the title, mainly due to Jose Mourinho.“I’m superstitious zero, I think zero of bookmakers, feeling zero favorite. What I have been saying for 20 years is always the same thing. When you reach the semifinals there is a 25% chance of winning the competition, 50% of reaching the final. This is my superstitious aspect translated into numbers. It happened to me with Porto to play two European semi-finals in two consecutive years. Obviously, I would love to get to this final. Not so much for me. I would like it so much for the boys and for the fans. The fans because they are absolutely extraordinary, the boys are an incredible group, they are having a season in which they are giving everything. We will have to play an extraordinary match to get to the final” explained the Portuguese.José Mourinho predicted 4 years ago that, out of his former players, Xabi Alonso would become a good manager.Now, Xabi Alonso did become a manager and has taken Leverkusen to the Europa League semifinals, where he will face José Mourinho’s Roma.pic.twitter.com/5WmNRwhYPO— IM🇵🇹 (@Iconic_Mourinho) May 10, 2023 On the other side will be Bayer Leverkusen with another multi-winner, but opposite to Mourinho. Unlike Roma coach, Xabi Alonso won everything as a player and nothing as a rookie coach. He loves his former manager, under whom he played 151 games in Real Madrid, but warned him:“I love him and I’ve learned so much from him. It will be nice to see him, but when the game begins there are no friends. Roma are a strong team, but we can make it if we give our best in our stadium and with our fans. We expect an intense game against Roma but want to believe in it with our fans. We have to score, this is the only difference from the first match” said the Spaniard. Alonso is enjoying his rookie season with Bayer, and already turned the club around. The Spaniard took over in October 2022 with Leverkusen second bottom of the Bundesliga table. Since then he has overseen 34 games in all competitions, winning 17, drawing eight and losing nine, but three of those defeats were in Alonso’s first six games in charge, which means it took a while until the players implemented his ideas.UEFA EUROPA LEAGUESemifinal, second legThursday22:00 2.60 Sevilla 3.25 Juventus 3.00 (first leg 1-1)22:00 2.20 Bayer Leverkusen 3.45 AS Roma 3.60 (first leg 0-1)
