Thursday, April 29, 2021 at 6:02 PM• Mart Oude Nijeweeme • Last update: 18:02

Unai Emery hopes to qualify for the Europa League final with Villarreal for the first time in club history. The Spanish club has to deal with Arsenal, Emery’s previous employer, in two duels. The coach also has a history with teams such as Sevilla and Valencia and worked at those clubs together with Hedwiges Maduro. This week Maduro left on ESPN know how to keep good memories of that cooperation and that feeling is mutual, as the press conference showed.

“I worked with him at Sevilla and Valencia,” Emery recalled. “Maduro is not only a good footballer, but also a good person. He is still interested in football after his career. I like both the footballer and the person Maduro, but if I have to choose, I will go for Maduro as a person. Because he has a good personality. You are only a good football player or trainer for a short while, you are a good person for your whole life. ” Emery managed to seize the Europa League three times with Sevilla between 2013 and 2016, before joining Paris Saint-Germain.

Emery responded with his statements to the words of Maduro, who indicated that he looked back on his time under Emery with a nice feeling. “He was immediately very energetic, had a clear plan and a clear vision,” Maduro told ESPN. “He was often at the club around seven in the morning and went home at seven in the evening. He was really crazy about football. At away games, he watched the next opponent’s matches on the plane back on the plane. Then he had not one but two laptops, so he could watch two games at the same time. Then I really thought: he really is a work animal.

Emery regularly gave Maduro an exemption to fly back to the Netherlands. “He was always a trainer who immersed himself in people. You also had a lot of conversations with him that were not about football. Then he asked how I was doing and my family. He knew everything about everyone. At a certain point he also knew that I was and am a family person. He often sent me to the Netherlands while the rest had to train. He explained that clearly in the locker room so that everyone accepted it. So he went by everyone and everyone accepted it, because he was so clear. “