Nothing is set in the UEFA Europa League Semifinals. Both series are still open
West Ham vs Frankfurt.
The first match of this series was played on Thursday at the London Stadium. The Frankfurt team took a tremendous result from English soil winning the match 2-1, the German team came to the match still undefeated in the competition and after eliminating Barcelona while West Ham had just beaten Lyon with a wide 4-1 on aggregate. The match started very well for Frankfurt and just 50 seconds into the game the Colombian Santos Borre launched a cross that was connected by Knauff to score the first goal of the match, however, West Ham was not impressed by this early disadvantage and immediately reacted with a one-on-one that Bowen unfortunately crashed against the post but in the 21st minute Moyes' team would get the equalizer at the feet of Antonio with an assist from Zouma after a free kick. After the equalizer, the match became more balanced and went more or less in the same vein, with West Ham proposing more but also failing to create more dangerous situations and so we would go to the break with the match tied 1-1.
The second half started with West Ham proposing and had a couple of chances that ended in nothing until the 54th minute when Frankfurt would get the second goal of the match at the feet of the Japanese Kamada in an unfortunate play for Areola who had managed to contain a first shot but the rebound was left at the feet of the Japanese who scored with an empty goal. West Ham, again down in the scoreboard, turned offensively to get the equalizer and with the entry of Benrahma the team had an offensive revulsive that led them to be close on a couple of occasions, one even hit the post of the goal defended by Trapp, but Frankfurt did not hide, Kamada was on the verge of sealing the game with a shot deflected by Dawson that crashed against the crossbar, the last dangerous move came in the added time when Bowen with an acrobatic play almost got the equalizer but for the third time in the game (to West Ham's bad luck) the ball hit the post.
West Ham played a good game but the misfortune of hitting the post 3 times did not allow them to tie the score. The Germans go home knowing that they have everything in their favor to advance to the final. The series is more than open and given the result, there is no clear winner. Personally I would like West Ham to qualify for the final, however in my opinion Frankfurt has been playing very well in this Europa League, eliminating a very difficult opponent like Barcelona and is still undefeated in this competition and I do not think that at home they will break that streak so I think they can impose themselves in their field since a draw would be enough to get into the final. In addition the statistics are with this team that is still undefeated in the competition, the last two times that a team came undefeated to these instances came out champion as we saw with Chelsea in the 18-19 season and with Villareal in the 20-21 season, however anything can happen in the second leg and statistics are just numbers so we'll see.
Leipzig vs Rangers
On Thursday these two teams faced each other at the Red Bull Arena in the city of Leipzig. This match went with Leipzig as the protagonist team and the one that proposed against a Scottish team that played the whole match very sheltered, the match was very difficult due to the style of play proposed by the visitor, in the first half there were not many remarkable chances and the most important ones passed through the feet of Leipzig players especially on Nkunku. The second half passed in the same way with a Leipzig protagonist who had again the chance to take the lead in the scoreboard through Nkunku, but they had not been fortunate. Everything was going just as planned for the Scottish team, who were defending for most of the match, but everything changed when Angeliño found a rebound that he fired in a volley to score a great goal and give his team the lead at the end of the match. Everything will be defined in Scotland where we should see a much more offensive version of this Rangers who are without their best offensive player of the season Alfredo Morelos who will be injured for the rest of this campaign. I think the difference in quality between this Leipzig and Rangers will make the series end up leaning in favor of the Germans, I think an offensive approach of the Scottish team can generate a scenario where the Germans led by Nkunku and company will have the necessary spaces to define this series in their favor.
SOURCE
I think we are on the verge of a German final in Seville for the Europa League final, however anything can happen and the scorelines indicate that the two series are far from being defined. That's all for this opportunity friends, thank you very much for making it this far and let me know in the comments who are your candidates for the final.
THIS POST AND THE EDITS WERE MADE BY HIVER @JUANPIA16 FOR THE HIVE BLOCKCHAIN EXCLUSIVELY.
THE EDITS WERE MADE IN CANVA