Unai emery He is a methodical technician. Proof of his tireless work in the tactical field is given by the words of the Basque coach after Villarreal’s victory against Manchester United in the Europa League final. Questioned about the keys to his success in the competition and the role of fortune in the victory, the Fuenterrabía coach turned to a graphic example of his pre-match work: «My fourth Europa League? 17 games I have analyzed in the last week of Manchester United. It’s work. Nothing more”.
No coach now overshadows Emery in the record of the second continental competition. Your poker –three titles with Sevilla in 2014, 2015 and 2016, in addition to the current one with Villarreal- he has no parallel. Only the Italian Giovanni Trapattoni He was up to the task until Wednesday, with two crowns with Juventus in 1977 and 1993 and another with Inter Milan in 1991. Behind, Simeone, Mourinho, Benítez and Juande Ramos, all with two conquests.
And it is that the work of Emery with powerful teams, but a step below the European elite, is beyond all doubt. Whoever was a player for Real Sociedad, Toledo or Racing de Ferrol began his career on the bench at the Lorca, where he hung his boots. After raising the Murcian team to Second in the 2004-05 campaign, he was about to repeat a feat, but this time in the silver category, in 2005-06. The merits opened the doors of the bench of the Almeria, with which he achieved promotion to First in 2007 and a comfortable tenure in the 2007-08 academic year.
Such an immaculate career already placed him in top-level football, with a stay in Valencia from 2008 to 2012 which resulted in up to three consecutive classifications for the Champions League, an achievement that the Mestalla did not value in its fair measure. An unsuccessful step, the first of his career on the bench, by Spartak Moscow gave way to the great stage of Sevilla, which began in 2013. At Pizjuán, Emery’s idyll with the Europa League began, with three consecutive titles between 2014 and 2016, an unprecedented milestone.
Then there would be two stages in prestigious clubs. The first in the todopoderoso Paris Saint-Germain from Neymar and then also from Mbappé. In two seasons, the Parisians took seven of the eight national titles – only Ligue 1 escaped from the 2016-17 campaign in favor of Monaco – but they were shipwrecked in the Champions League, with two eliminations in the second round against Barça and the Real Madrid.
In the Arsenal, Emery had the complicated mission of assuming the technical direction of the club after the departure of Arsène Wenger After more than two decades, and although he returned to a Europa League final in 2019, this time lost to Chelsea, he could not avoid dismissal midway through the 2019-20 campaign, before a return to the League through from Villarreal that has been a great success, with the first official trophy in the history of the ‘yellow submarine’.
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