2021 UEFA Europa League final

The 2021 UEFA Europa League final was the final match of the 2020–21 UEFA Europa League, the 50th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 12th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. It was played on 26 May 2021 at the Stadion Gdańsk in Gdańsk, Poland, between Spanish club Villarreal and English club Manchester United.

2021 UEFA Europa League final

Match programme cover
Event	2020–21 UEFA Europa League
Villarreal Manchester United 1 1
After extra time Villarreal won 11–10 on penalties
Date	26 May 2021 (2021-05-26)
Venue	Stadion Gdańsk, Gdańsk
Man of the Match	Étienne Capoue (Villarreal)[1]
Referee	Clément Turpin (France)[2]
Attendance	9,412[3]
Weather	Partly cloudy night 11 °C (52 °F) 45% humidity[4]
← 2020 2022 →

The final was originally scheduled to be played at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán in Seville, Spain. However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final to Cologne, the final hosts were shifted back a year, with Gdańsk instead hosting the 2021 final, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.^[5]

Villarreal won the match 11–10 on penalties following a 1–1 draw after extra time, thus winning its first trophy in the competition.^[6] As winners, Villarreal earned the right to play against the winners of the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League, Chelsea, in the 2021 UEFA Super Cup. They also qualified for the group stage of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League.^[7]

Venue

The Stadion Gdańsk in Gdańsk hosted the final

The match was played at the Stadion Gdańsk in Gdańsk, Poland. At the meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee in Kyiv in May 2018, the stadium was initially selected to host the 2020 UEFA Europa League Final,^[8] but when the COVID-19 pandemic forced UEFA to move the latter stages of the 2019–20 competition to Germany, the UEFA Executive Committee delayed Gdańsk Stadium's hosting of the Europa League final to 2021. The original venues for the 2021 and 2022 finals were also delayed by a year.^[9]

This was the first UEFA club match hosted at the stadium, which was one of the venues for UEFA Euro 2012.^[10] It was the second UEFA club competition final to be played in Poland, as the 2015 UEFA Europa League Final was played at the National Stadium in Warsaw. When the stadium was selected to host the 2020 final, it was known as Stadion Energa Gdańsk, so due to UEFA sponsorship regulations, marketing materials for the match referred to the venue as Gdańsk Stadium.^[11] Although the sponsorship deal with Energa was ended in November 2020, the stadium continued to be known as Gdańsk Stadium for the final.^[10]

Host selection

For the details on the selection of Seville as the original host for the final, see 2022 UEFA Europa League Final § Host selection.

An open bidding process was launched on 22 September 2017 by UEFA to select the venues of the finals of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and UEFA Women's Champions League in 2020. Associations had until 31 October 2017 to express interest, and bid dossiers had to be submitted by 1 March 2018. Associations hosting matches at UEFA Euro 2020 were not allowed to bid for the 2020 UEFA Europa League final.

UEFA announced on 3 November 2017 that two associations had expressed interest in hosting the 2020 UEFA Europa League final.^[12]

Bidding associations for final

Country	Stadium	City	Capacity	Notes
Poland	Stadion Gdańsk	Gdańsk	43,615
Portugal	Estádio do Dragão	Porto	50,035	Also bid for 2020 UEFA Super Cup and 2021 UEFA Champions League Final

The Stadion Gdańsk in Gdańsk was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee during their meeting in Kyiv on 24 May 2018.^[13][11]

On 17 June 2020, the UEFA Executive Committee announced that due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final, Gdańsk would instead host the 2021 final.^[5]

Background

This was Villarreal's fourth ever final in an official knockout tournament, having played previously three in UEFA competitions, all in the UEFA Intertoto Cup, winning it in 2003 and 2004.^{[14][15][16][17]} On the other hand, this was head coach Unai Emery's fifth European final, all in the UEFA Europa League; he won three successive titles with Sevilla in 2014, 2015 and 2016, before losing in 2019 with Arsenal.^[18]

This was Manchester United's second UEFA Cup/Europa League final, having won the only previous occasion in 2017. Overall, it was their eighth European major final between the European Cup/Champions League, Cup Winners' Cup, and the UEFA Cup/Europa League. Ole Gunnar Solskjær reached his first final as the club's manager, having scored the winning goal in the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final playing for them, exactly 22 years prior.^[19]

The clubs previously met four times, in the 2005–06 and 2008–09 UEFA Champions League group stages. All games ended in goalless draws.^[20][21]

Previous finals

In the following table, finals until 2009 were in the UEFA Cup era, since 2010 were in the UEFA Europa League era.

Team	Previous final appearances (bold indicates winners)
Villarreal	None
Manchester United	1 (2017)

Route to the final

Further information: 2020–21 UEFA Europa League and 2020–21 UEFA Champions League

Note: In all results below, the score of the finalist is given first (H: home; A: away).

Villarreal				Round	Manchester United
Europa League					Champions League
Opponent	Result			Group stage (EL, CL)	Opponent	Result
Sivasspor	5–3 (H)			Matchday 1	Paris Saint-Germain	2–1 (A)
Qarabağ	3–1 (A)[a]			Matchday 2	RB Leipzig	5–0 (H)
Maccabi Tel Aviv	4–0 (H)			Matchday 3	İstanbul Başakşehir	1–2 (A)
Maccabi Tel Aviv	1–1 (A)			Matchday 4	İstanbul Başakşehir	4–1 (H)
Sivasspor	1–0 (A)			Matchday 5	Paris Saint-Germain	1–3 (H)
Qarabağ	3–0 (H)[b]			Matchday 6	RB Leipzig	2–3 (A)
Group I winners Pos Team v t e Pld Pts 1 Villarreal 6 16 2 Maccabi Tel Aviv 6 11 3 Sivasspor 6 6 4 Qarabağ 6 1 Source: UEFA				Final standings	Group H third place Pos Team v t e Pld Pts 1 Paris Saint-Germain 6 12 2 RB Leipzig 6 12 3 Manchester United 6 9 4 İstanbul Başakşehir 6 3 Source: UEFA
					Europa League
Opponent	Agg.	1st leg	2nd leg	Knockout phase	Opponent	Agg.	1st leg	2nd leg
Red Bull Salzburg	4–1	2–0 (A)	2–1 (H)	Round of 32	Real Sociedad	4–0	4–0 (A)[c]	0–0 (H)
Dynamo Kyiv	4–0	2–0 (A)	2–0 (H)	Round of 16	Milan	2–1	1–1 (H)	1–0 (A)
Dinamo Zagreb	3–1	1–0 (A)	2–1 (H)	Quarter-finals	Granada	4–0	2–0 (A)	2–0 (H)
Arsenal	2–1	2–1 (H)	0–0 (A)	Semi-finals	Roma	8–5	6–2 (H)	2–3 (A)

Notes

1. Qarabağ played their home match against Villarreal in Istanbul, Turkey as UEFA matches in Armenia and Azerbaijan were temporarily suspended due to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.^[22]
2. The Villarreal v Qarabağ match was cancelled and awarded as a 3–0 win to Villarreal after several players of the Qarabağ squad tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.^[23]
3. The first leg away of Manchester United's round of 32 tie against Real Sociedad was played in Turin, Italy due to travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic from the United Kingdom to Spain.^[24]

Pre-match

Frenchman Clément Turpin was the referee for the final.

Officials

On 12 May 2021, UEFA named Frenchman Clément Turpin as the referee for the final. Turpin had been a FIFA referee since 2010, and was previously the fourth official in the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final. He officiated six matches in the 2020–21 Champions League season, and one leg in the 2020–21 Europa League round of 32. He served as a referee at UEFA Euro 2016 in France and the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, and was selected as an official for UEFA Euro 2020. Turpin also was a video assistant referee at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia (including in the final), the 2017 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates and the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France. He was joined by five of his fellow countrymen, with Nicolas Danos and Cyril Gringore as assistant referees, François Letexier as the video assistant referee, and Jérôme Brisard and Benjamin Pagès as two of the assistant VAR officials. Slavko Vinčić of Slovenia was the fourth official, while Dutchman Pol van Boekel served as the remaining assistant VAR.^[2]

Match

Summary

Villarreal opened the scoring in the 29th minute with a goal from Gerard Moreno, diverting the ball into the net with his right leg from six yards out after a free-kick from the left side delivered by Dani Parejo. Edinson Cavani equalized in the 55th minute after a shot by Marcus Rashford from 20 yards deflected off of Scott McTominay to Cavani, who scored with a low shot from five yards out.^[25] There were no more goals in normal time or in extra time with the match going to a penalty shoot-out. The first ten penalties from both teams were converted, leaving the goalkeepers to take a penalty. Villarreal keeper Gerónimo Rulli converted his penalty, and then saved David de Gea's attempt to his left, winning his side the trophy.^[26]

Details

The "home" team (for administrative purposes) was determined by an additional draw to be held after the quarter-final and semi-final draws.

26 May 2021 (2021-05-26)

21:00 UTC+2

Villarreal	1–1 (a.e.t.)	Manchester United
Gerard 29'	Report	Cavani 55'
Penalties
Gerard Raba Alcácer Moreno Parejo Gómez Albiol Coquelin Gaspar Torres Rulli	11–10	Mata Telles Fernandes Rashford Cavani Fred James Shaw Tuanzebe Lindelöf De Gea

Stadion Gdańsk, Gdańsk

Attendance: 9,412^[3]

Referee: Clément Turpin (France)

Villarreal[4]

Manchester United[4]

GK 13 Gerónimo Rulli RB 8 Juan Foyth  84'  88' CB 3 Raúl Albiol (c) CB 4 Pau Torres LB 24 Alfonso Pedraza  88' CM 5 Dani Parejo CM 25 Étienne Capoue  54'  120+3' CM 14 Manu Trigueros  77' RF 7 Gerard Moreno CF 9 Carlos Bacca  60' LF 30 Yeremy Pino  77' Substitutes: GK 1 Sergio Asenjo DF 2 Mario Gaspar  88' DF 6 Ramiro Funes Mori DF 15 Pervis Estupiñán DF 18 Alberto Moreno  88' DF 20 Rubén Peña DF 21 Jaume Costa MF 12 Dani Raba  120+3' MF 19 Francis Coquelin  60' MF 23 Moi Gómez  77' FW 17 Paco Alcácer  77' FW 34 Fer Niño Manager: Unai Emery

GK 1 David de Gea RB 29 Aaron Wan-Bissaka  120+3' CB 2 Victor Lindelöf CB 3 Eric Bailly  82'  116' LB 23 Luke Shaw CM 6 Paul Pogba  116' CM 39 Scott McTominay  120+3' RW 11 Mason Greenwood  100' AM 18 Bruno Fernandes (c) LW 10 Marcus Rashford CF 7 Edinson Cavani  113' Substitutes: GK 13 Lee Grant GK 26 Dean Henderson DF 5 Harry Maguire DF 27 Alex Telles  120+3' DF 33 Brandon Williams DF 38 Axel Tuanzebe  116' MF 8 Juan Mata  120+3' MF 17 Fred  100' MF 19 Amad Diallo MF 21 Daniel James  116' MF 31 Nemanja Matić MF 34 Donny van de Beek Manager: Ole Gunnar Solskjær

Man of the Match: Étienne Capoue (Villarreal)[1] Assistant referees:[2] Nicolas Danos (France) Cyril Gringore (France) Fourth official:[2] Slavko Vinčić (Slovenia) Video assistant referee:[2] François Letexier (France) Assistant video assistant referees:[2] Jérôme Brisard (France) Benjamin Pagès (France) Pol van Boekel (Netherlands)

Match rules[27][28] 90 minutes 30 minutes of extra time if necessary Penalty shoot-out if scores still level Twelve named substitutes Maximum of five substitutions, with a sixth allowed in extra time[note 1]

Statistics

First half[29] Statistic Villarreal Manchester United Goals scored 1 0 Total shots 5 4 Shots on target 1 1 Saves 2 0 Ball possession 36% 64% Corner kicks 4 1 Fouls committed 2 6 Offsides 0 1 Yellow cards 0 0 Red cards 0 0

Second half[29] Statistic Villarreal Manchester United Goals scored 0 1 Total shots 3 9 Shots on target 0 1 Saves 0 0 Ball possession 44% 56% Corner kicks 2 2 Fouls committed 7 5 Offsides 0 2 Yellow cards 2 1 Red cards 0 0

Extra time[29] Statistic Villarreal Manchester United Goals scored 0 0 Total shots 4 1 Shots on target 0 0 Saves 0 0 Ball possession 52% 48% Corner kicks 1 0 Fouls committed 1 4 Offsides 0 1 Yellow cards 0 1 Red cards 0 0

Overall[29] Statistic Villarreal Manchester United Goals scored 1 1 Total shots 12 14 Shots on target 1 2 Saves 2 0 Ball possession 43% 57% Corner kicks 7 3 Fouls committed 10 15 Offsides 0 4 Yellow cards 2 2 Red cards 0 0

See also

• 2021 UEFA Champions League final
• 2021 UEFA Women's Champions League final
• 2021 UEFA Super Cup
• Manchester United F.C. in international football
• Villarreal CF in European football
• 2020–21 Manchester United F.C. season
• 2020–21 Villarreal CF season

Notes

1. Each team was given only three opportunities to make substitutions, with a fourth opportunity in extra time, excluding substitutions made at half-time, before the start of extra time and at half-time in extra time.