AS Roma defeated a feisty Feyenoord side 1:0 on Wednesday night in Tirana to claim the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League title and become the first Italian team to win an European club competition since 2009/10, with José Mourinho becoming the first coach to win all three current men’s UEFA club trophies
The UEFA Europa Conference League is the third tier competition introduced by the European Football governing body, UEFA in 2021 to accommodate teams who are not able to qualify for the Champions League and the Europa League. The first ever final of the competition was hosted in Tirana, the Albanian capital on Wednesday 25th, May 2022 where Jose Mourinho and his team AS Roma were deservedly crowned champions.
Striker Nicolo Zaniolo gave Roma the lead on the 32nd minutes of the game by converting a chance from a close range. The 22 year old Italian goal was enough to propel his side to their maiden European trophy for over 60 years.
Nicolò Zaniolo (22 years, 327 days) is the youngest Italian player to score in a final of a major European competition since Alessandro Del Piero (22 years, 200 days) against Borussia Dortmund in Champions League in May 1997.
AS Roma however, have won their first UEFA title in their history and their first international competition since the Inter-Cities Fair Cup in 1960/61 campaign.
Jose Mourinho has become the only manager to have won in all UEFA competitions he has competed in. Mourinho has won five European trophies with four different teams. He first won the UEFA Europa League with FC Porto in the year 2003 by defeating Celtic of Scotland 3:2 in the finals. Mourinho after winning the Europa League in 2003 went ahead to win the UEFA Champions league with Porto in 2004 where his side defeated Monaco 3:0 in the finals.
In 2010, José Mourinho led Inter Milan to the Champions League finals and went ahead to defeat Bayern Münich 2:0 to win the Champions League. Before the the finals, Mourinho did the unthinkable by defeating then defending champions FC Barcelona in the semi finals on two legs.
With a little support and under performing squad he inherited from Luis Van Gaal at Manchester United, Mourinho was able to win the UEFA Europa League with Manchester United defeating Ajax Amsterdam 2:0 in the finals in 2017. Before the finals, Mourinho had most of his first team players out injured but, that did not deter him to mount out a plan to help his team to win the cup. He always wins in the the finals.
The Portuguese manager has won in all five of his UEFA European finals and he is the only manager to have achieved such an excellent feet. Mourinho, undoubtedly is a proven winner who wins wherever he goes and it was unsurprising to many when his side won the Conference League on Wednesday night in Tirana.
José Mourinho was appointed the manager for AS Roma for the 2021/2022 season after he was sacked by his previous club, Tottenham Hotspur in 2020. Tottenham may be the most unfortunate club Mourinho has managed in the history of his managerial career. He qualified qualified Tottenham to the English league Cup finals but unfortunately, Tottenham Chairman Daniel Levy sacked Mourinho few days to the finals and Tottenham lost in the league Cup finals.
Even though Jose’s philosophy has been criticised by many yet he tries to win.
