I hope the Europa League does for Manchester United what it did for my Atletico Madrid team in 2010.
For years before we won it, Atletico had a reputation for being losers, for being weak and not being consistent or able to rise to the biggest occasions. That all changed when our team beat some really strong opponents on the way to winning the final in Hamburg. It was Atletico’s first trophy since 1996, it gave players such as Sergio Aguero and David de Gea confidence and lifted the whole club.
Atletico have not looked back since. They enjoyed the win so much that they were serious about winning it in 2012.
That 2010 night in Hamburg was one of the top five of my career. I scored a couple of goals as we beat Fulham 2-1 after extra time. To get there we had to beat Galatasaray, Sporting Lisbon, Liverpool and Valencia, all Uefa Champions League regulars.
There were a lot of games, most of the regulars played between 50-60 matches that season, but that was not a problem. Footballers love playing football.
I am a big fan of the Europa League, which starts up again this week with the round of 32, and not just because it is a competition I won. Standards are very high and it is really well organised. Critics claim it is a Champions League lite. Any player would obviously prefer to win the Champions League, but the Europa is a very hard competition to win. And it is definitely worth winning.
I cannot understand why some clubs look down on it, why Bolton Wanderers played a reserve team in 2008 against Sporting Lisbon. Surely Bolton should have tried to win the competition?
Uefa had problems with the Europa League at first. The crowds were low and the image was not right, but they changed it and made it more professional by adding incentives. They gave it branding, its own football, too. These are small details but to the players they make it seem more professional.
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Before the Champions League and Europa League, all clubs used to take all three European competitions very seriously. Barcelona did not win the European Cup until 1992 and before that their fans celebrated winning the 1979 Cup Winners' Cup in Basel.
Manchester United talked of beating Barcelona in the same competition in Rotterdam in 1991 as one of the great moments in their history. There was room for three great European tournaments, so now there is surely room for two.
The winners of the Europa League get to play in the Champions League and they also play in the European Super Cup against the Champions League winners. We played Inter Milan in 2010 and beat them in Monaco. That was another trophy for Atletico, another great night for the club and the thousands of fans who travelled with us.
Standards have also risen, teams are better and pitches are too. United may be going to a small club, Midtjylland in Denmark, but another joy of the Europa League is that you go to new places and not just to the same Champions League teams year after year.
We played Aris Salonika in 2010, an incredible night at a club I had barely heard of before. It was in beautiful city, with fans on the beach before the game. The noise in the stadium was like a big South American game; it was crazy, with 17,000 people sounding like 70,000.
We were the holders and we lost 1-0. We lost the home leg 3-2 and were out of the competition, and that was with our bench having players such as Diego Costa, Mario Suarez, Filipe Luis and Jose Antonio Reyes. I keep saying that standards have improved right across European football.
Manchester United are out of the Champions League and do not look like they are going to win the Premier League. The Europa League and the FA Cup are their two remaining hopes for a trophy this season, but the Europa League is much harder to win. They saw the level when they were last in it – the only time they have been in it – as Athletic Bilbao beat them home and away.
Spanish teams have dominated the Europa League and the Champions League, but it has given clubs like Sevilla a chance to show the world how good they are. They have won it four times in the last decade, but look at the teams who have won the Uefa Cup over the years, they include the greatest in football ... except Manchester United.
That should be the incentive, that and cheering up their fans with some great European games to end an unhappy season and qualifying for Champions League football as a result.
It will be very difficult. Look at the teams still in it: United, Borussia Dortmund, Olympiakos, Porto, Fiorentina, Fenerbahce, Tottenham Hotspur, Sevilla, Valencia, Napoli, Lazio, Liverpool, Shakhtar Donetsk, Marseille, Athletic Bilbao, Bayer Leverkusen and Galatasaray.
That looks like a Champions League competition to me. The standard will be just as high.
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