The Spanish-English Final You Never Saw Coming

If you’d laid down some of your hard earned on a Spanish-English European final at the beginning of the year, chances are you weren’t getting much return on your money. And now we have that Spanish-English European final, just not in the competition you’d think.

The Europa League has whittled down to two: Atletico Madrid and Fulham FC. One a humble club with a humble history from the posh section of London, the other a veritable catastrophe mere months ago, barely finishing third ahead of Cypriot club APOEL on the same points and with a far inferior goal difference of -9. Neither currently sit in a league position which can be displayed with single digits, Atletico tenth and Fulham twelfth, both on 43 points.

This is not your average European final.

Which undoubtedly gives it a storybook allure, if not quite the storybook allure of Hamburg defending its own stadium in the final. A story not told nearly often enough.

But the plucky Cinderella is here, and the plucky underachiever dwarfed several times within its own city is also here, the only Madrid side in a European final this season. Don’t tell Florentino. And it’s all on the back of one hero for Atleti: Diego Forlan.

Reigning European Golden Shoe winner and ab exerciser extraordinaire, Diego scored both goals in the 2-2 away goal aggregate win, including the uber-dramatic reply to Yossi Benayoun’s eight minutes earlier in Anfield extra time. The man simply murders goal nets – what can you do?

And thus Liverpool were resigned to their fate of a trophy-less year and Atletico were left to ponder how they’d managed to emerge from Champions League squalor to become a European finalist.

Down in London, it was less dramatic but only slightly so. A Mladen Petric ball which belongs fighting wars somewhere gave the visitors the early lead, while commanding possession gave the idea they’d quickly traverse the bridge from visitors to hosts.

When Fulham finally took the game in their hands, it only took six minutes to quickly wrap up the two goals they needed for their first ever European final – and what goals they were. One goal a simple pass with exquisite technique to finish from Simon Davies and the other a simply exquisite turn from Zoltan Gera.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

This too will be history, as Atletico Madrid and Fulham partake in the first ever Europa League final. A final you’d never, ever have placed your hard earned upon at the beginning of the year.

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Category: UEFA Cup, World Football