{"id":561717,"date":"2020-08-12T12:20:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T16:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=561717"},"modified":"2020-08-12T12:20:49","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T16:20:49","slug":"julen-lopetegui-sevilla-face-biggest-team-in-the-world-manchester-united-in-europa-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/08\/12\/julen-lopetegui-sevilla-face-biggest-team-in-the-world-manchester-united-in-europa-league\/","title":{"rendered":"Julen Lopetegui: Sevilla Face ‘Biggest Team in the World’ Manchester United in Europa League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sevilla manager Julen Lopetegui has branded Manchester United<\/a> as the \u201cbiggest team in the world\u201d ahead of the clubs\u2019 Europa League semi-final meeting this Sunday.<\/p>\n

The former Spain and Real Madrid<\/a> manager\u2019s comments come after he led his side to a 1-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers <\/a>at the quarter-final stage.<\/p>\n

Julen Lopetegui Ready for Manchester United Test<\/h2>\n

Deserved Victory Over Wolves for Sevilla<\/h3>\n

Wolves\u2019 383-day-long European adventure was ended by Sevilla in Germany after Lucas Ocampos<\/a> netted a late header.<\/p>\n

Raul Jimenez<\/a> failed to convert a penalty earlier on in the game, but Sevilla dominated the match from that moment onwards and were able to stretch their unbeaten run to 19 games to set up the clash with Ole Gunner Solskjaer\u2019s in-form Manchester United side.<\/p>\n

The Red Devils won the competition under Jos\u00e9 Mourinho in 2017, but this Sevilla team are the true Europa League specialists, having triumphed in the competition three times in a row between 2014 and 2016.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Spanish outfit have won all three matches they have played against English sides at neutral venues. They added victory over Wolves to a 4-0 win over Middlesbrough in 2006 and a 3-1 success against Liverpool<\/a> in 2016.<\/p>\n

Julen Lopetegui: Nobody Bigger Than United<\/h3>\n

Despite his club\u2019s history in the competition, Sevilla manager Lopetegui is under no illusion as to the size of the challenge in their way.<\/p>\n

“We are going to play against Manchester United in the next match – they’re the biggest team in the world but we’re going to be prepared for them,” the Sevilla boss said<\/a> of the English giants.<\/p>\n

“We’re focused on the next game, against a top, historic side, one of the best in the history of the sport who are in great form. We will give our best as we always do.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo play against them will be really tough, but we’ll go into it believing we can beat them.”<\/p>\n

Solskjaer Inspired by Semi-Final Defeats<\/h3>\n

Manchester United have fallen at the semi-final stage of both the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup this season.<\/p>\n

They were beaten over two legs by Manchester City<\/a> in the latter competition, before defeat<\/a> against Chelsea<\/a> in the FA Cup last month.<\/p>\n

Talking to Stewart Gardner of MUTV<\/a>, Solskjaer outlined his determination to make the next step and play in a cup final with his young squad this campaign: \u201cReaching semi-finals is a good effort; decent, but it\u2019s not good enough for Manchester United. The team has been developing and getting more-and-more hungry, but let\u2019s make sure that hurt that we felt in the two other cups we went out of can maybe be the marginal difference, in that we want it more than them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I lose a game or lose at something I don\u2019t want that feeling again, so I would think they\u2019re ready for Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Sevilla manager Julen Lopetegui has branded Manchester United as the \u201cbiggest team in the world\u201d ahead of the clubs\u2019 Europa League semi-final meeting this Sunday. The former Spain and Real Madrid manager\u2019s comments come after he led his side to a 1-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers at the quarter-final stage. Julen Lopetegui Ready for Manchester […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3563,"featured_media":561740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,2,3],"tags":[92,2411,36,3197,366,136],"class_list":["post-561717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-featured","category-premier-league","tag-europa-league","tag-julen-lopetegui","tag-manchester-united","tag-ole-gunnar-solskjaer","tag-sevilla","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3563"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}