In the past five years, there may be only one Europa League champion who is "qualified" - starting with Manchester United Hotspur s final

Yes, if you pass, you put quotes, because if you pass or not, it depends on the result. People have won the cup, and of course they are qualified champions. As for today's topic, I just want to interpret these champions from another perspective. After all, the quality and value of champions and champions are different.

Since the reform and expansion of the Champions League, the weight of the Europa League (including the League Cup) has begun to decline. It can be seen from the rule that the Europa League can win the Champions League next season that the Europa League is short of the Champions League. The Europa League wins the Champions League, which is just a stepping stone to the Champions League. For those teams who accidentally fall into the Europa League, their greatest understanding of the championship is not to win a trophy, but to qualify for the Champions League next season. But the Europa League is also a mainstream European event after all. Teams that can win the championship must at least have the style of a strong team, right? In fact, if a team needs to be the Europa League champion to get a Champions League place, they already seem a little low - shouldn't they win the top four leagues (except for the five major leagues, and the ranking is even higher), and they have already locked in the Champions League place with their league rankings? This is what the Europa League champion should have. The Europa League is indeed lower than the Champions League, but it is not that low. You can't treat the Europa League as a green channel and take a shortcut to the Champions League. Doesn't this seem a bit opportunistic?

This season's Europa League final has pushed this model to the extreme. Manchester United and Tottenham, one ranked 16th in the Premier League and the other ranked 17th in the Premier League, putting such two teams on the verge of relegation (I know they have a lot more points than the relegation zone and have already relegated in advance, but in the context of today's topic, is it necessary to explain these) teams participating in the finals of a European competition. Is this the glory of the two teams, or is it a shame of the event? So, Tottenham is the unqualified Europa League champion in today's context. Because they have no style, they gave up the league and fought hard on the Europa League and successfully gambled (of course, even if they don’t give up on the Premier League, they may not be able to play very well). In the Premier League, just looking at the rankings, they can be defined as a fish-skinned fish. Of course, the same is true even if Manchester United wins the championship. Maybe you would say this season is just a special situation. But you can see that the Europa League has been around for the past five years. In fact, these championships are not much better than Tottenham. Villarreal, from the 20th to 21st season, finally ranked seventh in La Liga and failed to enter the Champions League. There was no European Union at that time, but even if there was, they could not score in the seventh place. Frankfurt ranked only 11th in the 21st to 22nd seasons, and is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Bundesliga. Sevilla ranks 12th in the 22nd to 23rd seasons. This season, Tottenham fell below the lower limit, 17th. Do you feel that these Europa League champions have really made the Europa League lose their price and shame. They have created an illusion that the Europa League is a competition that can only win the championship by giving up one guarantee and taking advantage of one trick. Only by playing badly in the league can we save energy to deepen our efforts in the European League. However, the previous Europa League champions were not like this, or, most of them were not like this. Therefore, in the past five years, only one European League champion has passed - Atlanta.

Many people think that Atlanta only looks awesome when defeating Leverkusen in the final, but I think what Atlanta is really awesome is that they won the Europa League championship and already have a UEFA Champions League place. This is the style of a strong team, or in other words, this is the style that the Europa League champion should have. Although, Atlanta has never been a traditional strong team in terms of heritage. In fact, Atlanta's winning model should be the norm for Europa League champions and is not worthy of deliberate exaggeration. But it was because the other Europa League champions in the past five years were too unreasonable and too low that Atlanta was revealed. However, I have a premonition that as European football intravenous becomes increasingly serious, future Europa League champions may be mostly Tottenham Hotspur’s moral character, and the league rankings are eye-catching. And there are fewer and fewer championships like Atlanta.