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.

Rocky Road: How Porto and Braga booked their places in Dublin

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Playoff Round: Genk 4-7 Porto
Source: AP Photo/Paulo Duarte
Group L: First Place (15pts)
Source: AP Photo/Paulo Duarte
Last 32: Sevilla 2-2 Porto (Porto win on away goals)
Source: AP Photo/Angel Fernandez
Last 16: CSKA Moscow 1-3 Porto
Source: AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev
Quarter-Final: Porto 10-3 Spartak Moscow
Source: AP Photo/Paulo Duarte
Semi-Final: Porto 7-4 Villarreal
Source: AP Photo/Paulo Duarte
Last 32: Lech Poznan 1-2 Braga
Source: AP Photo/ Czarek Sokolowski
Last 16: Braga 1-0 Liverpool
Source: Nigel French /EMPICS Sport
Quarter-Final: Dynamo Kiev 1-1 Braga (Braga win on away goals)
Source: AP Photo/Paulo Duarte
Semi-Final: Benfica 2-2 Braga (Braga win on away goals)
Source: AP Photo/Paulo Duarte