The UEFA Europa Conference league final was its very first, it took place between AS Roma of Italy and Feyenoord of the Netherlands at the Air Albania Stadium, Tirana, Albania. AS Roma broke a 94 years Jinx to win their first-ever European trophy, winning it last night over the Netherlands side by 1-0 after full time.
Both teams have been terrific in their quest to the final and against all odds, they have eliminated teams that seemed to be difficult opponents.
Nicolo Zaniolo miraculous first-half strike in the 37th minute of the encounter put Roma over Feyenoord. Regardless of several dangerous attempts made by Feyenoord, Chris Smalling, Gianluca Mancini and Roger Ibanez rebuffed all attempts from Cyriel Dessers and other Feyenoord attack lines. The game ended in a narrow score of 1-0 in favour of Roma.
History was made last night after the final.
AS Roma is the first Italian team to win a UEFA club competition trophy since Inter won the Champions League in 2009/10 when they were coached by Mourinho. This Means José Mourinho was the last and latest manager to win a European trophy with an Italian club.
José Mourinho has never lost any of his five European Cup finals. The Portuguese had two victories with FC Porto, one each with Inter, Manchester United and AS Roma.
José Mourinho, Roma coach: “Winning is very difficult. You need many ingredients. Our team has played 55 games. We reached the final being tired, but we kept it hidden. This is a fantastic group of players; that makes me emotional. We struggled in the second half; our opponents played well, and they forced us to make defensive changes.”
Nigerian forward Cyriel Desser finished the tournament as the top scorer with ten goals and two assists, Tammy Abraham was the closest with nine goals.
