The first European final of the season takes place in Basel on Wednesday night, as Liverpool meet Sevilla in the 2016 Europa League final.
Neither team have enjoyed a strong finish to their domestic league, with Liverpool drawing their final two games and Sevilla doing even worse, losing both of their matches at the end of the La Liga season. However, both teams have had the 18th of May in their diary for the last two weeks and much of their attention has been focused on this game.
Sevilla come in to the match as defending champions, having won the Europa League for the past two seasons. No team has ever won the trophy for three years running, so Unai Emery and his team will be attempting to make history. Sevilla dropped in to the Europa League, having been eliminated from the Champions League groups stages earlier in the season. They have defeated Molde, Basel, Athletic Bilbao and Shakhtar Donetsk to reach the final.
For Liverpool, this will be their first European final in 9 years, having lost to AC Milan in the Champions League final of 2007. Unlike their opponents, Liverpool started the season in the Europa League and came through a group containing Bordeaux, Rubin Kazan and Sion. In the knockout stages, Liverpool had the tougher route, defeating Augsburg, Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund and Villarreal.
In terms of the final, the previous two have been contrasting, in that Sevilla played out a 0-0 draw with Benfica to win on penalties in 2014, only to defeat Dnipro 3-2 in 2015. Despite their performance in the first leg of the semi-final in Villarreal, Liverpool do not appear to be a team who will be happy to sit back and see where the match goes. Jurgen Klopp will have them on the front-foot, pressing Sevilla, who will also be aiming to do what they do best, which is play attacking football.
Both teams have played out just one 0-0 draw in the knock-out stages of the Europa League and both teams to score in the final is on offer at 20/23 with Coral. Furthermore, if you look at the quarter-final onwards, only two of the eight games combined have had under 2.5 goals scored in them. Therefore, yes, in the over 2.5 goals markets may be worth a look at Evens with Ladbrokes.
In terms of potential match winners, Sevilla’s Kevin Gameiro, who is on stand-by for France at Euro 2016, has scored at least once in each of his last five appearances. He also scored in both legs of the semi-final and can be backed at 5/1 with BetVictor to grab the first goal of the match. Liverpool’s goal scoring threat is more difficult to pin-point, you have to work your way quite far down the list of Europa League top goal scorers before you come across Adam Lallana on 3 goals and Philippe Coutinho with 2 goals. The Brazilian has been the one player for Liverpool this season, who has looked capable of scoring from anywhere on the pitch and Coutinho is 8/1 with 888sport to score the first goal of the game.
Selecting a potential winner of this game is difficult. Both teams want to win for the sake of winning a European trophy but both need to win in order to qualify for next season’s Champions League. For Liverpool, failure to win will mean no European football at all next season, whereas Sevilla have a Europa League place sewn up, thanks to being in the Copa del Rey final.
Having been there and done it for the previous two seasons, Sevilla have to get the nod. Liverpool will come out full throttle but in a final like this, against a team hugely experienced in terms of the occasion, they could get picked off. Both teams will have chances to score goals but with Sevilla’s know-how just edging it, the 5/1 for Sevilla to win and both teams to score at BetVictor is tempting.
