Europa League: Cottagers Reach Final With Second-Half Comback; Atletico Take Out Liverpool With OT Goal

The semifinal round of UEFA's Europa League concluded with two Thursday contests.

At London:

Goals in the second half from Simon Davies (69') and Zoltan Gera (76') enabled Fulham to erase a one-goal deficit and win game two 2-1 against Hamburg and win the two-game series 2-1 on aggregate, ruining the German club's hopes of playing the Europa League final at home on May 12. This will mark the Cottagers' first appearance in a major European final.

At Liverpool:

Liverpool, thanks to Alberto Aquilani's goal at 44 minutes,  took game two of their two-match set with Atletico Madrid 1-0, squaring the two-game set 1-1 on aggregate, forcing two fifteen-minute overtime periods.  In the first overtime period, Yossi Benayoun scored at 95 minutes for the Reds, giving Liverpool a 2-1 lead on aggregate, but Diego Forlan scored at 102 minutes with what turned out to be the series winner for Atletico at 2-2.  The Matressmakers win the two-game series because of the away goals rule, which is enforced in overtime.

This year's final will mark the first appearance by an English club since Middlesborough lost the UEFA Cup final at Eindhoven, Netherlands to Sevilla of Spain.

The last English club to win the UEFA Cup/Europa League title:  Tottenham Hotspur in 1984, winning a two-match final with Belgium's RSC Anderlecht 4-3 in a penalty-kick shootout after the series was deadlocked 2-2 on aggregate.

Atletico will be the first Spanish club sice Sevilla defeated fellow La Liga club Espanyol in a penalty-kick shootout at Glasgow, Scotland in 2007 to take part in the final of the UEFA Cup/Europa League.

This will Atletico's first appearance in the final of a major European tournament since losing to Dynamo Kiev (from the then-Soviet Union) 3-0 in the final of the old Cup Winners Cup in Lyon, France in 1986.

It was the Cup Winners Cup that has provided the Red-Whites with their lone European final triumph, in 1962, as they and Italy's Fiorentina deadlocked at 1-1 through overtime at Glasgow.  Atletico won the final replay 3-0 at Stuttgart, Germany.