Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea says that if United are to achieve success in the Europa League then they will need to overcome the best teams and puts Barcelona in that bracket.
Speaking to the Man United media team, De Gea stressed that Barcelona, who are currently the league leaders in David’s native country Spain, are one of the “best teams”, despite dropping down to the Europa League as one of the eight third-placed teams in the UEFA Champions League. Barcelona will sure present a tough challenge for United if they are to advance to the Round of 16 stages.
“We know Barcelona is a great team, I think they are playing well,” De Gea told us.
“If you want to win the Europa League, you have to play against the best teams and Barcelona is [one of these].
“It’s one for the fans and we will try our best to win both games.”
De Gea last played against Barcelona for United in the 2018/19 Champions League quarter-final but he and the team were outclassed by a Lionel Messi inspired Barcelona, who ran out 3-0 winners.
However, De Gea hopes that this time around it will be different and that United will be fully focused when the game comes around after the New Year.
“Yeah, I think so [it’s a good test]. There’s still a lot of time [before we have] to play the Europa League games so we have to be focused on the rest of the games [before then].
“Of course, playing against the best teams is always a challenge, so we need to be very ready to play against Barcelona and to play against any team that we have to play against.”
Even though the teams that have dropped down from the Champions League have great European pedigree, De Gea hopes that United can continue the trend of the last four Europa League titles being won by those who have started the competition in Europe’s second premier competition.