UEL Final | Micky on the pain behind the joy of reaching Bilbao: “This is what you do it for”

You could have excused Micky van de Ven a moment to reflect once the dust settled on our UEFA Europa League semi-final win against Bodo/Glimt.

Micky returned from injury to start our last five huge UEL matches to take us to next week’s showpiece against Manchester United in Bilbao (21 May) - the second leg against AZ, both legs against Eintracht Frankfurt and Bodo/Glimt - renewing his central defensive partnership with Cuti Romero and conceding three goals in those five games, including huge clean sheets in Germany and Norway.

Good times - but it wasn’t always that way for the Dutch defender this season.

Indeed, Micky talked us through the tough times as he recovered from injury setbacks against Chelsea (8 Decemeber) and Elfsborg (30 January) - setbacks that restricted him to just two appearances between initially getting injured against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup on 30 October through to his return against Bournemouth on 9 March. During that time, he was sidelined for 27 matches in all competitions.

“It’s been really tough,” he reflected. “I played against Chelsea, thought, ‘I’m back’, but then fell out again and, mentally, it’s like you are getting punched, and you have to do it (rehab) all over again.

“I came back against Elfsborg, we won, made the first eight (in the league phase of the UEL), so it was only positive vibes, but then afterwards, something wasn’t right, and it was so tough to be out again. I've worked on my own, away from the group, over and over, so to describe the emotions that come after the game (at Bodo), you're like, ‘this is what I did it for’. It was so tough. You get down. It’s so important the people around you are staying positive, and the people here kept me pushing.”

Micky has plenty of highlights on the way to the final, including the site of the 'To Dare Is To Do’ tifo in the first leg of the semi-final against Bodo/Glimt - ‘I looked right, saw it, and it just gives you power’ - keeping a clean sheet in Norway - ‘we said, ‘you're not scoring against us’, and we did that’ - and dressing room scenes with Guglielmo Vicario in his pants - ‘he threw his shorts into the fans, I’m like, ‘what are you doing?’ he’s like, ‘I don’t care’ - but Micky picks the 1-0 win at Frankfurt as his number one.

“They are an unbelievable side, of course,” he added. “It's really difficult to play over there with their fans, so we knew it was going to be a really, really tough game for us. They scored in every home game for a year, so to keep a clean sheet over there... we played an unbelievable game as a team. That was a really big performance.”

As for dreams of lifting the trophy, with the final less than a week away, Micky said: “It’s nice that we’ve reached the final, but I just want to win it. You can reach a final and if you lose it, no one talks about it again, but we just go there and we go full out to win this trophy.”