Europa League

After painful defeats in recent continental finals, Diego Simeone's Atletico Madrid is determined to justify their status as favorites in the Europa League showpiece against Marseille in Lyon on May 16.

22 years after the last trophy in club history, "Slavia" again won the Bulgarian Cup. In 1996, the "white" won again against Levski in the final, but this time the game was not just played in the regular time, but it came to penalties and the oldest team in Sofia won 4-2.

Asteras Tripolis clinched the last remaining place for Greek teams in the Europa League qualifiers as it beat Panetolikos away on Sunday, while AEK combined its celebration of its first title in 24 years with a win at Apollon Smyrnis.

Marseille will face Atletico Madrid in the Europa League final after beating Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg over two legs.

The French side went into Thursday's semi-final with a 2-0 lead from the first leg, but their hosts scored twice to take the game into extra time.

PAOK defeated Panathinaikos in Athens on Sunday to mathematically clinch the second spot in the Super League, that leads to the Champions League qualifiers, while Kerkyra has become the second team to go down.

With one game left to play, the only pending issue is the last team to make the Europa League qualifiers for next season, with Asteras Tripolis and Xanthi vying for it.

Arsenal has little time to digest Arsene Wenger's long-awaited decision to end his 22-year reign as a Europa League semifinal with Atletico Madrid offers the outgoing manager a chance to salvage some of his lost credit with the club's fans.

BBC - Arsene Wenger is to leave Arsenal at the end of the season, ending a near 22-year reign as manager.

The Frenchman departs a year before his latest contract was due to expire.

The Gunners are sixth in the league and set to miss out on a top-four spot for the second straight season, with their hopes of reaching the Champions League resting on winning the Europa League.

The Europa League semi-final draw has been made, and Arsenal will face Atletico Madrid in the last four of the competition.

Arsene Wenger's side booked their spot in the semi-finals after seeing off CSKA Moscow in the last round, while they were impressive in knocking out AC Milan prior to that.

Ludogorets dropped out of the Europa League tournament after losing a the second match from sixteen finals against  Milan - 0:1 at the San Siro stadium on Thursday night. A week earlier in Razgrad, the Bulgarian champion retreated to the Rossoneri with 0:3. The only goal at the meeting was by Fabio Borini. 

AEK showed once again in the Europa League that it lives and dies by its draws, as it came close to beating Dynamo in freezing Kiev but ended up in a stalemate on Thursday that leaves it out of the last 16 of the tournament, albeit undefeated.

Following the 1-1 draw in Athens last week, AEK went out in Ukraine in search of a goal that would give it the ticket to the next round.