UEL Final: What You Need To Know Before Arsenal Vs Chelsea Match
These two clubs are less than 10 miles apart — roughly 40 minutes by London Underground — but they’ve had to travel nearly 3,000 miles to face off in Baku, Azerbaijan, where they’ll contest the Europa League final. Perhaps unsurprisingly, neither team sold out its allocation of about 6,000 tickets each (in a 60,000-seat stadium).
At stake is the second biggest trophy in European football and, for Arsenal, a place in the Champions League next season. (Chelsea already qualified by finishing third in the Premier League.
Both teams breezed through the group stage, often fielding second-string sides, but Arsenal had the tougher run in the knockout phases. They had to come from behind to dispatch BATE Borisov from Belarus and Rennes before hitting their stride and impressively knocking out Napoli and Valencia.
It was a photonegative of Chelsea’s run, which saw them win home and away in every round until the semifinal, when Eintracht Frankfurt took them all the way to penalty kicks after two draws.
TACTICAL CONTRAST: Both Emery and Sarri believe in pressing and a pass-oriented game, and both men have occasionally had a rough time from fans and pundits (more so Sarri, to be fair). But where Sarri is a staunch 4-3-3 man, hardly ever deviating from his favored system and (somewhat counterintuitive) style of play, Emery is a tactical chameleon.
PREDICTION: Arsenal 2, Chelsea 1 (after extra time, which means this game, kicking off at 11 p.m. local time, will go well into Thursday).
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