The first UEFA Europa League final with an Italian team in over twenty years of this tournament's history will be played tonight by Inter, in Cologne against Sevilla, the Spanish team that holds the record for cup victories. According to initial plans, the final of this edition of the Europa League was to have been played in Gdansk, Poland, but the pandemic forced UEFA to conclude the tournament behind closed doors in four German stadiums, including the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne. Which tonight starting at 21 will host Inter and Sevilla.
It will be a final full of meaning, both for the tournament itself and the two teams
involved. In recent years, the final phase of the Europa League has seen the participation of many great teams, some
of which have been able to benefit from continuing towards more important
goals. The ongoing cycle of Diego Simeone's Atletico Madrid, for example,
started by winning two Europa Leagues in three years, to then make room for Sevilla, which with five wins in
fifteen seasons - the last three consecutively between 2013 and 2016 - was able
to establish itself as one of the great teams in Europe. Manchester United and
Chelsea are also among the latest winners, while Ajax played 2017 final.
For Inter it will
be the first European final since
2010, the year of their last victory in the Champions League. In this decade
the team has experienced a long decline from which it has only pulled out in
recent seasons, coinciding with the acquisition of the club by the Chinese
group Suning. With the signing of Antonio Conte and the recent signings of some
great players, there seems to be the basis for the beginning of an at least
satisfactory cycle; but to win you has to get used to winning.
It was also since Parma's victory in Moscow in 1999 that a Serie A team had not made it to the
final. In its history, Inter has won the Europa
League three times - all in the 1990s, when the tournament was still called
the UEFA Cup - the same number as Juventus, Liverpool and Atletico Madrid; only
Sevilla have more.