Roma boss Jose Mourinho “respects” Sevilla coach Jose Luis Mendilibar’s claim the Spanish side are favourites in Wednesday’s Europa League final.
Sevilla, record six-time winners, have never lost a Europa League final, while Mourinho has won all five European finals he has ever been involved in.
“History does not play. My colleague thinks otherwise, I have respect for him,” said Mourinho.
“He believes that history makes Sevilla favourites, I respect that.”
He added: “We are in the final because we deserved to be, they have a history that we do not have. For them to play the final is a normal thing, for us it is an extraordinary event.”
The winners of the final at Budapest’s Puskas Arena will play in next season’s Champions League – their only hope of doing so. Neither team can finish in the top four of their league, while Sevilla – 11th in La Liga – could miss out on Europe entirely.
Sevilla, who won the 2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2020 finals, were in relegation trouble until they appointed Mendilibar in March.
The much-travelled 62-year-old has never won a major trophy – while Mourinho, 60, has won the Champions League with Porto and Inter Milan, league titles and cups in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain, the Uefa Cup/Europa League with Porto and Manchester United, and last season’s Europa Conference League with Roma.
Mourinho said: “I have had more opportunities to play in European competitions, but Mendilibar is of the same generation as me, with the same white hair. We are on an equal footing. It’s the same for the players: Sevilla have more experience, but we’ve been playing together for two years.”
Last week Mendilibar said: “I think that Sevilla will be favourites given we have won this competition six times. Some people prefer to look at the budgets of both sides, others look at their history. However you want to look at it, you can see both sides winning it. And I would not discount Sevilla. I see it 50-50.”
Sevilla midfielder Nemanja Gudelj told Uefa: “If somebody had told us at the beginning of the season that this would be the case [Sevilla being in the final], we wouldn’t really have believed them.
“Mendilibar has to be thanked for that. We’ve improved our overall style of play, we’ve started getting better results and we’ve started playing the way that Sevilla used to play a few years ago.”
Roma full-back Leonardo Spinazzola is available again after a muscle strain, while forwards Stephan El Shaarawy and Paulo Dybala should be fit too. Dybala might only be available to play 20 or 30 minutes, says Mourinho.
Sevilla forwards Suso and Papu Gomez, who missed the game against Elche, were back training this week.
Referee Anthony Taylor leads a team of English officials for the game. Michael Oliver is the fourth official and Stuart Attwell is the video assistant referee.
