ALL THE WAY back on July 1 last year, the 2010-2011 Europa League kicked off with relatively little fanfare as the tournament’s first qualifying round got underway.
Then, the only game of interest for Irish fans was Dundalk’s trip to little-known Luxembourg outfit CS Grevenmacher.
Now, 178 games and 479 goals later, the competition is inescapable as Dublin prepares to host the final of the 2011 tournament in less than 36 hours time.
Advertisement
While our interest may have only been piqued in the last couple of weeks (Liverpool and Manchester City fans aside), this year’s finalists, Porto and Braga, set out on the rocky road to Dublin many months ago.
Their respective paths to tomorrow night’s decider weren’t always easy and weren’t always pretty but they both got here in the end.
We take a look back at how they managed to do it.
Rocky Road: How Porto and Braga booked their places in Dublin
Rocky Road: How Porto and Braga booked their places in Dublin
ALL THE WAY back on July 1 last year, the 2010-2011 Europa League kicked off with relatively little fanfare as the tournament’s first qualifying round got underway.
Then, the only game of interest for Irish fans was Dundalk’s trip to little-known Luxembourg outfit CS Grevenmacher.
Now, 178 games and 479 goals later, the competition is inescapable as Dublin prepares to host the final of the 2011 tournament in less than 36 hours time.
While our interest may have only been piqued in the last couple of weeks (Liverpool and Manchester City fans aside), this year’s finalists, Porto and Braga, set out on the rocky road to Dublin many months ago.
Their respective paths to tomorrow night’s decider weren’t always easy and weren’t always pretty but they both got here in the end.
We take a look back at how they managed to do it.
Playoff Round: Genk 4-7 Porto
Group L: First Place (15pts)
Last 32: Sevilla 2-2 Porto (Porto win on away goals)
Last 16: CSKA Moscow 1-3 Porto
Quarter-Final: Porto 10-3 Spartak Moscow
Semi-Final: Porto 7-4 Villarreal
Rocky Road: How Porto and Braga booked their places
Last 32: Lech Poznan 1-2 Braga
Last 16: Braga 1-0 Liverpool
Quarter-Final: Dynamo Kiev 1-1 Braga (Braga win on away goals)
Semi-Final: Benfica 2-2 Braga (Braga win on away goals)
Check out more of TheScore.ie‘s Europa League Final build-up here >
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
ELF2011 Europa League Final Countdown Porto Sporting Braga