EUROPA: Man United Beat Ajax To Trophy, Secure UCL Ticket

English Premier League side Manchester United lifted their first ever Europa League trophy after defeating Dutch giants Ajax 2-0 in the final at Friend’s Arena, Stockholm, Sweden on Wednesday night. The victory also means the Red Devils have booked their place in the group stages of next season’s UEFA Champions League. It was Paul Pogba’s deflected shot 18 minutes into the game and Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s sixth Europa League goal of the season in the 47th minute gave them the comfortable win. The Jose Mourinho’s men have already won the EFL Cup against Southampton earlier in the season, making it two major trophies for the Devils. “It is the end of a very difficult, but good season,” Mourinho said after the win. “We preferred to reach the Champions League this way than finish fourth, third or second. We got the objective, we are back in the Champions League by winning a title, an important title. The club now has every title in world football. We fought hard for this since the beginning. We always thought that we could win the Europa League and we are very happy. We played intelligently, we did it in a comfortable way. We were much stronger than them.” United clinched the Europa title only 48 hours after a bombing attack at the Manchester Arena killed 22 persons and injured over 60. Midfielder Ander Herrera dedicated the trophy to the victims of the attack. He said: “I want to dedicate this trophy to the victims. This is just football and what happened two days ago was horrible. “We want peace in the world, a normal world with respect. We are just football players but we have an audience so we just want to see everyone work together for a normal world.” Meanwhile, United have now become the fifth team to claim the full quota of European trophies, joining an illustrious list with Ajax, Chelsea, Juventus and Bayern Munich.