Montiel edges Sevilla to seventh Europa League triumph with win over Roma

Sevilla’s empire just will not fall, not even to the Romans. After three long, exhausting hours, the match that seemed to never end, just like their extraordinary dominance of this competition, came down to a single kick. Or so it seemed: instead, at midnight in Budapest it came down to two of them. Gonzalo Montiel, the man who scored the penalty that won his country the World Cup was entrusted with taking the penalty that would win his club their seventh, yes seventh, Europa League. This time he did not score, his shot saved by Roma’s Rui Patrício.

But Anthony Taylor, the referee who had given and taken away a penalty for Sevilla during the actual game, which had lasted 147 minutes, was advised by the VAR of an encroachment. And so he gave Montiel another chance, and this time he found the net, supporters stream down the stands and onto the pitch. At long last, it was all over. At times it had felt like this would never, ever end. But it did, and with history made once more.

Maybe it was always going to go this way when the invincible meet; certainly once this went into extra time, Paulo Dybala’s opener was levelled by a Gianluca Mancini own goal, it felt like there was no way penalties could be avoided. If this competition is Sevilla’s, they had not yet come up against José Mourinho. Here, they did, and it was a hell of a fight. Sevilla had played six Europa League finals and won them all; Mourinho had been in five European finals and done the same. Eleven occasions like this, without falling and by the end of this somehow they were still standing. Until that one, last astonishing roar, the final breath.

The first time this place erupted happened fast, a moment’s hesitation enough for the knife to be slipped in. Ivan