Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur will later contest the 2024/25 edition of the UEFA Europa League final after both of them have passed their respective semi-finals.
An all-English final only took place in 2019 when Arsenal and Chelsea in Baku, Azerbaijan, stepped together, a competition that was conveniently won by the latter. Tottenham also overcame Wolverhampton Wanderers in the first UEFA Cup final in 1972.
Spurs actually lifted the trophy twice and claimed them again in 1984, while they were beaten Feyenoord in 1974. For United, this is a third visit to the Europa League in eight years, which previously defeated Ajax in 2017, but lost a marathon penalty against Villarreal in 2021.
Ruben Amorim’s United had a comfortable 3-0 lead over the Athletic Club from the first leg in Bilbao last week and finally saw him through when he returned to Old Trafford. They initially fell back to Manchester, but the only unbeaten team in the competition reached Mason Mount Level at night and then ran the score through Casemiro, Rasmus Hojlund and Mount late.
Spurs were similar to 3: 1 against Bodo/Glimt, the Norwegian side that had only written through the semi-final history. After a targetless first half in Bodo, 42,000 inhabitants, Dominic Solanke and Pedro Porro arrested the underdog hosts.
Although fame alone is important – hope Spurs hope to finally wait 17 years for a trophy – which is also at stake in the final of the Europa League, is of great importance from a financial point of view.
The winning team deserves an automatic place in the Champions League of the next season, which is accompanied by extensive income. In view of the fact that both United and Spurs have held out bad domestic campaigns, it is an unexpected but welcome opportunity to dine again at the Europa’s table.
The Europa League final is planned for Wednesday, May 21, and starts at 9:00 p.m. CEST (8:00 p.m. BST).
The Champions League final of this season is organized in San Mames in Bilbao, with the Athletic Club failing its efforts to achieve the Showpiece event in its own stadium.
In 2013 it replaced the original San Mames, which had been opened a century earlier and maintained just more than 50,000 people. The event location previously organized games at the Euro 2020 and was the backdrop for the final of the women’s champions League last season.
Bilbao has never organized a UEFA Cup or Europa League final as a neutral stadium, until 1977, when the final with two legs and the Athletic Club with Juventus was directed home and away. Spain as a country did not organize the end of the Europa League in 2022 when Eintracht Frankfurt came to Rangers at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan in Sevilla.
Tickets for the Europa League 2025 start at just € 40 after the UEFA has created a “fans first” category for supporters of each competing club, of which a total of 30,000 are.
Another 11,000 tickets are open to the general public and neutral, which are more expensive. The cheapest category of this is still 65 € (£ 56), but then it rises in category two and 240 € (£ 206) in category 1 to € 160 (£ 137).