Manchester United win Europa League final: 3 takeaways
In the biggest match of the season for Manchester United, the Red Devils beat Ajax to secure a place in next year’s Champions League.
The Europa League final featured an Ajax squad full of youth, a Manchester United squad full of expensive talent and saw the Special One’s plan to prioritize the Europa League pay off. Here are the three biggest takeaways from the Europa League final.
Champions League soccer should bring in big names
United have been linked with multiple big names recently. These include the likes of Antoine Greizmann, Romelu Lukaku and even James Rodriguez. Winning the Europa League final, and securing Champions League soccer next season, turned these rumors into serious possibilities.
Griezmann was quoted in the past week saying there’s a “6/10” chance of him joining the Red Devils in the summer. And with United winning the Europa League final, the chances of that happening have likely increased significantly. Griezmann is a fantastic talent, and his creative ability might just be what United need to return to bring back their glory days.
As for the other names, players like Lukaku and Rodriguez are likely already interested in playing for a club like United. Being in the Champions League makes signing those players all the much easier, and the squad at Old Trafford could look very intimidating come the end of the summer.
How long will Ajax be able to hold on to their young stars?
Losing in the Europa League final is a massive blow to Ajax. It was a great accomplishment for the club to get there in the first place, especially given the youth they’ve relied on so heavily. While not all of them are going to leave in the summer, big clubs in the biggest competitions will surely come calling.
Players like Davy Klaassen, Amin Younes, Kasper Dolberg, Davinson Sanchez and Jairo Riedewald will surely have clubs calling for their services. All of them have burst onto the scene with fantastic seasons, both domestically and in the Europa League. The key for Ajax moving forward will be to keep as many of them as they can, but keeping them all is now much less realistic with their loss in the Europa League final.
While the above listed players, and others like Hakim Ziyech and Matthijs de Ligt have been the topic of transfer discussion, there has been no confirmed talks between any other clubs.
Ajax will still be in next season’s Champions League — they enter at the third qualifying round after finishing second in the Eredivisie — but winning a major final like this could perhaps have helped stave off Europe’s superclubs for another season or two.
Despite the young stars not performing to their best in the Europa League final, it will be less than surprising to see a select few of them at bigger clubs come next season.
Jose Mourinho was right to prioritize the Europa League
Mourinho has spent much of the latter half of the season talking about two things: the fixture list being too cramped, and the Europa League final. Mourinho has made his stance on the competition as clear as can be: it was the top priority for Manchester United.
The talk of United missing out on Champions League soccer for another year can now be put to rest. In winning the Europa League, Mourinho and the Red Devils have secured their place, and have changed the course of the foreseeable future of the club for the better.
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This win vindicates the stance that Mourinho took in prioritizing the Europa League over the Premier League in the latter half of the year. And this win also has bigger implications than proving that Mourinho is, indeed, having a successful first season at Old Trafford.
This win doesn’t just mean bigger sponsorship deals, better soccer to watch for the supporters and bigger names coming to the club, but it also changes the course of the future for United. All of these things together make for a very, very bright future and an exciting summer transfer window. Expect United to have much more intimidating, and much deeper, squad come next season.