Europa win hands Reds easier draw next season
UNITED will return to Europe’s top table after their historic Europa League final win against Ajax.
As well as winning the trophy for the first time, the victory in Stockholm has given the Reds crucial UEFA coefficient ranking points - and potentially a kinder draw in the Champions League group stages.
They now have a coefficient of 95.192 to put them in Pot 2 of the draw and will avoid facing Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, PSG, Borussia Dortmund and Porto.
Had the Reds qualified for the Champions League through their league position, they would have been in Pot 3 based on their UEFA coefficient over the last five years.
With United having failed to play in the knockout stages of Europe’s top competition since 2014, that could have meant an even tougher draw.
But they could still face a European heavyweight in the group stages.
Pot One features the Champions League winner and seven domestic champions based on UEFA’s coefficient rankings.
That means United will face one of Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Shakhtar Donetsk, Monaco and Spartak Moscow.
Jose Mourinho’s side cannot yet play any of the English clubs.
The make-up of the other pots has not yet been confirmed as there are still qualifiers and playoffs to be played in the summer.
FC Basel and Anderlecht are the only confirmed foreign teams United could meet in Pot 3, but Napoli, Dynamo Kiev, Ajax, Olympiakos could yet join them.
Dutch champions Feyenoord and Bundesliga high fliers RB Leipzig are the only certainties in Pot 4, but Roma, Celtic, Hoffenheim and Nice could also feature. FOR the supporters clad in United red, watching Ander Herrera dance to his own chant and Zlatan Ibrahimovic having his picture taken with a suggestive banner, Wednesday night brought to an end a nine year wait for a European trophy.
It’s the same amount of time that elapsed between those European Cup triumphs in Barcelona and Moscow, but the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson and the advent of smart phones means more has changed this time around.
As the players took selfies on the pitch and posted dressing room clips to Instagram, there was the palpable sense that this is the start. This squad wants more.
The majority have now won the FA Cup, League Cup and the Europa League, but ambitions now turn towards the game’s largest prizes, starting with a return to the Champions League.
It’s no surprise. This is a young squad and there is a sense that here is the beginning of another successful United team - the best since Ferguson’s third great team reached three European finals in four years.
That crop – featuring Cristiano Ronaldo, Nemanja Vidic, a younger Michael Carrick and Wayne Rooney – lifted club football’s biggest trophy in 2008 and dominated the Premier League.
After victory in Moscow, Ferguson led his side back to the final the following year, only to come up against the Barcelona juggernaut. But there was no panic, no rush to change the squad too dramatically and overhaul immediately.
Partly that was due to Glazernomics - this was the summer that Ronaldo was sold and Michael Owen arrived. But mainly, it there was little need for wholesale change. When United reached the 2011 Champions League final at Wembley, eight of the 2009 XI were again on the field for the kick-off against Barcelona. And in Stockholm, Mourinho fielded five players that can be the nucleus of his own United team of the future. He is now moulding a side capable of erasing the memories of the last few turbulent campaigns. Antonio Valencia is celebrating eight years in Manchester, but his reinvention as one of the Premier League’s best rightbacks was justly rewarded by the Players’ Player of the Year and the captain’s armband in the Friends Arena. Marcus Rashford was forced to bide his time following the arrival of Ibrahimovic, but since the Swede’s injury wasted little time in exhibiting the improvement to his game. Herrera’s evolution into Mancunian maestro continues off the field, while his increasingly influential