The Europa League Final is the culmination of the tournament which used to be the old UEFA Cup. The Europa League is second in prestige to the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League Final is the first of the two competitions to be settled in a season. Historically the Final has been held in midweek.
The tournament took on the guise of the Europa League in the 2009/10 season. Along with the name change came a change in format to the competition and since its inception, the Europa League itself has gone through some further changes in qualification as well. At the end of the day, this is a major trophy to be won and it’s no easy thing getting through a big field either. The winner of the Europa League Final takes a berth in the following season’s UEFA Champions League.
Qualification
Winners of domestic leagues across Europe get their shot at the UEFA Champions League, while places for the UEFA Europa League go to teams who finish in various runners-up spots in leagues, such as the fifth-placed team in the Premier League for example. The number of slots open does change all based on UEFA coefficients as better performing nations get more open slots for teams to enter the competition.
For the most part, teams finishing in the highest places not eligible for the Champions League make their way to the Europa League. Depending on coefficients as well, some of these teams will automatically go to the group stage, while some will enter at the play off stage immediately before the group stage. Others have to start right at the very beginning of the first round of qualification.
On top of that, the eight teams to who finished third in their Champions League group take a drop down to the Europa League so there is the unpredictability of never knowing just who is going to be lining up in the first knockout stage. Teams who go that route enter at the round of 32.
UEFA Cup
The first edition of the UEFA Cup was held in the 1971/72 season and it was English success as Tottenham got their hands on the title over Wolves. Liverpool delivered again for England in the following edition by taking down Borussia Monchengladbach. Ipswich at a later date would also be English winners of the tournament as it was the UEFA Cup. Through to 1997 UEFA Cup Finals were played out two legs.
Juventus delivered Italy’s first title in 1977 by beating Athletic Bilbao while Borussia Monchengladbach got in on the title-winning action after earlier failure against Liverpool. From the inaugural edition right through to the 1980/81 season the winner of the UEFA Cup was either from England, Italy, West Germany or the Netherlands.
Sweden’s Gothenburg broke up that dominance and in the mid-eighties, Real Madrid would land back to back titles. Between 1988/89 and 1994/95, an Italian side won six of the seven editions in that period. Other famous names of European football like Bayern Munich, Porto, Valencia and Ajax are among the former winners of the UEFA Cup.
The last winners of the tournament as the UEFA Cup were Shakhtar Donetsk who beat Werder Bremen in Istanbul in 2009. The Ukrainians who took the title after having dropped from the Champions League to participate.
The first Europa League Final
The first-ever Europa League final was an all-Spanish affair between Atletico Madrid and Atletico Bilbao in 2010. It was Atletico who came out on top in Bucharest, taking a comfortable 3-0 victory in the match. The first winners of the Europa League to have come down from the Champions League was Chelsea in the 2012/13 season after beating Benfica 2-1 in the Final. Sevilla would become the first side to successfully defend a Europa League title, actually winning it three seasons in a row between 2013/2014 and 2015/16.
2017 Europa League Final Review
Manchester United delivered what was their first ever UEFA Cup/Europa League title in the 2016/17 Final. That completed a clean sweep of all three major European trophies for the club as well (European Champion Clubs’ Cup/UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League, and the defunct UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup) doing something that only Juventus, Ajax, Bayern Munich and Chelsea had managed before.
Manchester United had started their campaign in the group stage where they only managed to finish second behind Fenerbahce. Still, it was enough to get them through and they had an easy passage past Saint Etienne in the round of 32, winning 4-0 on aggregate. That left them with a round of sixteen tie against Rostov and that was a tight squeeze of the Red Devils, winning 2-1 on aggregate against the Russians.
After needing extra time to get past Anderlecht in the quarter finals, Manchester United found themselves tested once again in the semi-finals where they were up against Spain’s Celta Vigo. It was another one-goal winning margin in a tie for the Premier League side, winning 2-1. That put them through to the final against Ajax.
The Dutch side had won their group convincingly and were looking a real threat as they powered their way through the knockout stages, scoring freely. They started off slowly with a 1-0 aggregate win over Legia Warsaw in the round of 32 but then produces a great comeback against Copenhagen in the round of sixteen having lost the first leg. There was a thrilling quarter-final duel between Ajax and Schalke, with extra time needed at the end of the second leg which Ajax ended up winning 4-3 on aggregate.
Then it was Lyon who they went up against in the semi-finals and that was another high scoring affair. Ajax were looking comfortable having won the first leg 4-1 but they were hanging on in the end as they lost the second leg 3-1 to squeeze through 5-4 on aggregate. Ajax had impressed with some powerful attacking displays but they failed to reproduce it in the final as Manchester United banked a comfortable 2-0 win without looking under any threat.
2018 Europa League Final Preview
It is Marseille v Atletico who are set to meet on May 16th in the final of the 2017/18 Europa League. The final is being hosted in Lyon so Marseille will at least be playing the match on French soil. But they will be taking on an Atletico side who have won their last two appearances in the final, in 2010 and in 2012 and it is the Spaniards who will be kicking off as favourites.
Solely for administrative purposes, Marseille will be the home side and they started the competition in the group stage where they finished as runner-up to RB Salzburg. But the French side always had the potential of being a threat in the tournament and they started showing really well in the knockout stages. They opened with a 3-1 aggregate win over Braga and then took out Athletic Bilbao 5-2 on aggregate. So they were scoring freely and needed to do so in the quarter-finals as they edged RB Leipzig 5-3 on aggregate having lost the first leg 1-0.
Then they meet up with RB Salzburg again following their group stage duel and Marseille had to hang on after winning the first leg 2-0 on home. Then the second leg went to extra time as the Austrians fought back. But Marseille got a crucial away goal in extra time and despite losing the second leg 2-1, made it through to the Final.
Atletico Madrid arrived in the Europa League after a miserable Champions League group stage campaign. They came firing out of the blocks though in the Europa League betting Copenhagen 5-1 on aggregate and then demolishing Lokomotiv Moscow 8-1 on aggregate. Things were tight in the quarter finals for them as they edged Sporting 2-1 before going up against Arsenal in the semi-finals.
The Spaniards took control of the tie with a dramatic draw in London, getting an away goal in a 1-1 tie before winning 1-0 back at home. This will be Atletico’s third UEFA Cup Final, having won in 2010 and 2012 while for Marseille this will be their first final in the competition having come through a semi final tie at the third attempt in their history.
