Sir Alex Ferguson Urges Manchester United To Win The Europa League This Season
Reuters / Andrew Boyers
Manchester United’s legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson has urged the Red Devils to win the Europa League this season.
Having already won the EFL Cup and gotten knocked out of the FA Cup as well as the Premier League title race, Jose Mourinho’s men are now in the hunt for just one more major trophy: The UEFA Europa League. Manchester United have reached the quarterfinals of the competition, and are all set to take on Belgian outfit Anderlecht in the first leg of the tie on Thursday night.
Amid the English giants’ European cup run, the Manchester United players have received some additional motivation to go on to win the decorated tournament, thanks to recent comments from the club’s legendary manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
The 75-year-old Scot recently talked about United’s European aspirations in an interview with ESPN, and stated (via Sky Sports): “Your CV gets bigger. If we won the Europa League? Fantastic. Add it to the European Cup, the Cup Winners’ Cup, the Champions League – it’s bigger and bigger. We also want to be the most successful club in England.
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“The thing is, we’ve never won the Europa League. We never won the UEFA Cup, what it used to be. And we’ve got a great draw. I’m not saying it’s a certainty, but they’ve got a great chance.
“It gets you into the Champions League, too – it didn’t used to but it does now, and so that’s a great incentive. And there’s no Sevilla in it, so that’s good.
“If you win a trophy, it’s important. It’s a European trophy. It doesn’t matter that it’s not the Champions League – it’s still a European trophy. And if you win it, you get into the Champions League. The incentive is greater to do that.”
The former Manchester United boss also spoke about the Spanish clubs’ dominance on the European stage in the recent years, and explained: “In the ’70s, Ajax and Bayern Munich; ’80s, Liverpool; ’90s Italy, AC Milan. And then England had a great spell. At the moment, the cycle is with the Spanish teams. And they’re best, that’s why they’re winning it.”