Sevilla and Roma will face off in the 2023 UEFA Europa League final after winning their respective semifinal matches on Thursday night.
Sevilla already holds the record for most championships won in the competition's history, having won it on six separate occasions (2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020), and they are vying for a seventh victory.
Roma, on the other hand, last won it back in 1961 when it was still known as the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which was the forerunner of the UEFA Cup and then the Europa League. They do, however, currently own the Europa Conference League championship.
This season, Sevilla began in the Champions League but was eliminated after the group stage. Since then, they have defeated Juventus, Fenerbahce, and PSV Eindhoven.
In the end, extra time was needed to decide the semifinal matchup with Juventus. Federico Gatti's goal in Turin in the 97th minute tied the score for the first leg at 1-1. Erik Lamela scored an early header to win the rematch in Spain after the score remained tied after 90 minutes.
Roma has completed the most difficult "park the bus" challenge to go to the final. Going into their match against Bayer Leverkusen in Germany, Jose Mourinho's team had a 1-0 aggregate lead and set about defending it. In contrast to Leverkusen's 15 attempts and eight other blocked efforts, they only made one shot all game, Lorenzo Pellegrini's errant attempt after two minutes.
Mourinho has won this competition twice as well as the Champions League twice, having led Porto to victory in 2003 and Manchester United to victory in 2017.
The Europa League championship match for this season will be held on May 31, 2023, at Budapest's Puskas Arena. It is the first of three UEFA finals that will be contested; the other two are the Europa Conference League final between West Ham and Fiorentina on June 7 and the Champions League final between Manchester City and Inter on June 10, which will be played three days later.
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