José Mourinho confirmed his gifts as a lucky charm of Italian football by offering AS Roma its first European trophy, the new Europa League Conference, by beating Feyenoord Rotterdam (1-0) in the final with difficulty on Wednesday in Tirana. Roma relied on a nice sequence from Nicolo Zaniolo to unlock a locked match (32nd) then on the gloves – and posts – of their goalkeeper Rui Parico to resist the Dutch after the break.
This narrow victory is worth a first international title for the Wolf, after two lost finals (1984 in C1, 1991 in C3), if we except the success in 1961 in the Cup of the cities of fairs, unofficial ancestor of the Europa League.
Mourinho, the European finals specialist, wins his fifth continental trophy, after his two Champions Leagues (2004 with FC Porto, 2010 with Inter Milan) and his two Europa Leagues (2003 with FC Porto, 2017 with Manchester United ). If we count his success in the Coupe des Coupes (the defunct C2) as an assistant to FC Barcelona, he even combines the four European cups. Only the UEFA Super Cup, lost three times, is denied to him. His victory on the bench of Inter, in C1, was also the last of an Italian club on the European scene. It will therefore have been necessary to wait twelve years and the return of the Portuguese to Italy to see a Serie A club again lift a cup in Europe.
Enough to maintain the “Mourinho-mania” in force for a year at the Stadio olimpico, where several tens of thousands of Romans met on Wednesday to follow this historic victory on the big screen. The spectators were almost half as many in the Tirana stadium (21,000 seats), too small to contain the 100,000 fans from both sides who descended on the capital of Albania. With the key to tensions, arrests and expelled tifosi.
