It will be Chelsea vs Arsenal in this seasons Europa League Final. Two teams from London travelling almost three thousand miles for the final, to the capital city of Azerbaijan, Baku. Roughly fifty six hours. It better be a final full of goals and beautiful game play that even gets the neutral fan fired up. We’ll have to wait and see.
Going back in time, the first UEFA Cup Final took place between Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (Wolves) in the 1971/72 season. From that game onwards, every UEFA Cup final was over two legs, at the two sides home stadiums. The first final without this system was in 1997/98 when Internazionale beat Lazio 3-0 in one of four all Italian finals down the years (1990, 1991, 1995, 1998).
The 2009/10 season was when the organisers changed the name of this famous European football competition to, the Europa League. Atlético Madrid were crowed the champions that day, after beating Fulham 2-1 at the HSH Nordbank Arena (now called Volksparkstadion). Diego Forlán with two goals for Madrid while only Simon Davies could put the ball past the young Spanish goalkeeper, David de Gea.
Chelsea were winners back in 2012/13. Goals from Fernando Torres and Branislav Ivanović secured Chelsea’s second European trophy in two seasons. Need I have to say what happened against FC Bayern Munich.
We return back to the present day, as the countdown is on to see who will lift that famous trophy on Wednesday May 29th. I predict that it will be a game with moments of pure quality from both London sides. Naturally, as a Chelsea, I would love to see the Blues be crowned winner. However, after past games against Arsenal, I am not 100% confident. The game which sticks to mind is the 2-0 defeat to the Gunners in January this year, when two frenchmen, Alexandre Lacazette and Laurent Koscielny, got the winning goals in the first half. Football is very unpredictable, look at what happened in the UEFA Champions League this season.
My prediction: 1-1 in 90 minutes, with Chelsea scoring the winner in extra time.
RGE
Many wonders 