“Unirea won the league in Romania and they are certainly a good team. We have to progress as far as we can and its an opportunity for us to win a trophy, which we will try and take,” said Benitez.

“I have some friends in Seville (who were in Unirea’s Champions League group) and maybe I will be in contact with them.

“They also had Stuttgart in their group and maybe they could have qualified (for the Champions League knockout stages). We know that it is going to be tough.

“We will play the first game at home; sometimes that is worse but we have to do it and we will be ready. It’s important to have lots of options to win trophies. The Champions League might be more important but there are some good teams in the Europa League.”

And a trophy is a trophy, whatever competition it’s in!