Iborra, the four-time champion ‘ram’

Unai Emery meets again with Sevilla, a club that he directed to half of the six Europa Leagues that shine in his record to then achieve, last season, the first and only continental title that adorns the showcases of the La Cerámica stadium. But the one from Hondarribia is not the only four-time champion ex-Sevillista who plays in the ranks of the yellow team: Vicente Iborra has also been in those four UEFAS.

Iborra arrived at Sevilla from Levante in August 2013, just in time to consecutively win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Europa Leagues of the Nervión club. The Valencian midfielder arrived as a defensive pivot, the place where he has moved the most during his career, but Emery was converting him to the position of second striker, to take advantage of his arrival. Iborra, in fact, reached the appreciable figure of 9 goals during two consecutive campaigns, 15-16 and 16-17. The two highest scoring campaigns of his career.

That brilliance and that of the following season, now without Emery on the Sevilla bench, earned him a transfer to Leicester City in the summer of 2017. The English club paid 15 million for the transfer of the footballer, who, however, had a hard time adapting to the Premier. A year and a half after his arrival in Great Britain, in January 2019, Villarreal recovered him for LaLiga.

And months later he would coincide with Unai again to lift the second continental title dressed this time in yellow. This Sunday, Iborra is reunited with a Sevilla that he keeps in his heart, as he has expressed on more than one occasion. A place where he won three European cups and where he got fed up scoring goals almost as if he were a striker.