Sevilla embarrass Manchester United to reach last four of the Europa League

Sevilla strolled into the semi-finals of the Europa League after disposing of a very poor Manchester United side at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium on Thursday, April 20.

With the tie evenly poised after last week’s first-leg 2-2 draw, Erik ten Hag and his men entered a cauldron of noise in the Andalucian city. The Reds had been cruising at Old Trafford, two goals to the good until two awful errors led to Sevilla drawing level on the night.

In a night to forget, the Red Devils were thumped 3-0 by a team that is really struggling in Spain’s LaLiga, to lose the tie 5-2 on aggregate. In his post-match interview, the Dutch coach found it difficult to disguise his anger at what he had just witnessed as his team imploded in front of him.

Speaking with BT Sport, he said: “This was a great opportunity, a great occasion to win something and we gave it away – we have to blame ourselves. It’s gone, we can’t change it. We have to look forward to Sunday, that’s the next opportunity”.

“It’s unacceptable. We lost the battles, they had more passion, more desire, more willingness, and that’s difficult to win games. We can’t run away from it. On Sunday we have another opportunity and have to step up and show more character and personality”, he added, as reported by bbc.com.

The United coach was referring to this Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final at Wembley. He has to motivate his players to battle against a Brighton side that is flying high in the Premier League this season. Only four days later comes a massive match with Tottenham which could be key to a top-four finish and European football next season.

Harry Maguire endured another horrendous night at the back. The England defender was fully responsible for Sevilla’s opening goal after just seven minutes as he gifted the ball to Youssef En-Nesyri.

Loic Bade doubled his side’s lead when his header bounced in off the bar beyond David DeGea in the 47th minute. The Spanish keeper made an awful howler to allow En-Nesyri to bag his second of the night after 81 minutes.

As a result, Sevilla – who have won this trophy on six occasions – set up a semi-final with Serie A club Juventus, who beat Portugal’s Sporting 2-1 in their quarter-final.