The reunion between Unai Emery and Valencia are painful memories for Arsenal | Amy Lawrence | Soccer

UEmery is not a reference man in the past – and it's not as if he has plenty of time to expose the growing problems of the present – but the prospect of a Europa League draw against Valencia will recall one of his most intense memories of football.

Five years ago, as manager of Seville, he found himself facing his former Valencia team in the semi-finals. With a 2-0 home advantage from the first leg, his team collapsed at Mestalla and conceded three goals. It was the hour of the stop. His team was coming out. Valencia fans were delighted. Stephane Mbia then headed for a goal that put the emotions of everyone backwards. Sevilla suddenly scored goals and Emery was lost in overflowing celebrations, charging on the field and clinching a clbadic of José Mourinho's playbook.

Valencia fans who had already loved their former coach lamented a tarnished legacy. They have been grudging since. Sevilla then won the contest and allowed Emery to win his first honor as manager, the first of three consecutive titles that would bring him his reputation as Mr Europa League.

While Emery himself has a personal history in Valencia, Arsenal, as a club, has long been carrying injuries resulting from past experiences against this opponent. In 1980, Arsenal and Valencia played in a European final, the Cup Winners' Cup, at Heysel Stadium in Brussels. At the end of the mammoth season, when Arsenal played 70 games with reruns and innumerable adventures in all cups, they found themselves running ruthlessly at the wrong time.

They lost two finals – the FA Cup by a single goal, then the Cup Winners Cup on penalties – within five days. While Valencia was asking them for more time, then the shooting, it was almost too difficult to bear. Their leader, the legendary Alfredo Di Stefano, called the sanctions "like giving birth".

Valencia was an enemy for Arsenal a few years later, when the two clubs made new European waves trying to compete for the Champions League. They met twice at a time when they were both at the top and very close to each other. Both won their national championships in 2002 and 2004 and met in Europe the season before each title when they were in the pedigree, hunting, ambitious and about to achieve great things.

They represented something refreshing in the Champions League of the day, emerging clubs apart from the usual suspects who already had titles behind them at Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Ajax, Milan and at the Juventus. Valencia reached the successive finals in 2000 and 2001 (where they were defeated by the usual suspects). Nevertheless, their progressive team showed that it was possible for clubs outside the historic elite to make progress. Borussia Dortmund, winner in 1997, was made in a similar fabric.

Although Arsenal went to the finals in 2006 and that he regretted not having done so with their Invincible team in 2004, while they felt good enough to do so, the Arsene Wenger's devastated character and his players during their meeting with Valencia in 2001 highlighted another brilliant opportunity to spoil. They were 15 minutes from a semifinal against Leeds when John Carew, a 6-foot-5 striker, led Arsenal on goals away.

Wenger was only five years from his reign at that time, still a fresh and energetic force, and he looked pale after a defeat. It was obvious that he was crushed by the feeling of a wasted gold opportunity. Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry, two of the team's most coveted talents, came out of the locker room and cursed their lack of ambition, wondering if Arsenal had the resources to go further in the competition. That seemed to reveal the club's temperature at the time, while the tight start of the last eight Champions League players was such a demoralizing failure for the main protagonists.

The rendezvous between the clubs two years later had a similar sound. To close. Intense. Installed at the end at Mestalla by Carew, the giant spine of Arsenal.

The current team recently conceded nine goals in a week, after three disastrous defeats. Arsenal knows they need to show a more competitive and organized face against Valencia, picking up the kind of performance they showed in the last round against Napoli. Emery called for renewed attention. "We are in the final sprint and we need to be cool if we want to finish strong this season," he said.

Emery's badessment and its impact on Arsenal were hit by the recent poor results against Crystal Palace, Wolves and Leicester, who automatically place more emphasis on the Europa League as the best bet for the course in the arsenal of Arsenal Champions League. A big lift is necessary.