With an Argentine presence, this Thursday the four semifinalists of the Europa League were defined. Juventus, Roma, Bayer Leverkusen and Sevilla won their respective quarterfinal series and got into this instance.
The team from Turin, which included the world champion Ángel Di María among the starters, drew 1-1, as a visitor, against Sporting Lisboa and advanced due to the advantage obtained in the first leg.
Leandro Paredes and Matías Soulé were on the Juventus substitute bench, but they did not enter.
For their part, Roma recovered from the 1-0 first-leg defeat by winning 4-1 at home against Feyenoord. Those led by the Portuguese José Mourinho opened the scoring with a goal from Leonardo Spinazzola, it was equalized by the Dutch and, with a minute to go before the end of the game, Paulo Dybala got rid of a defender and scored the second goal that led the game to overtime.
In the 11th minute of extra time, Stephan El Shaarawy scored the third goal for the Italians, and Lorenzo Pellegrini extended the lead in the second period of extra time.
In turn, Sevilla, with the Argentines Marcos Acuña, Lucas Ocampo and Erik Lamela among their starters, also qualified as a semifinalist in the Europa League by defeating Manchester United 3-0, at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán stadium, for the second leg of the quarterfinals.
The last classified was Bayer Leverkusen, who this afternoon, as a visitor, thrashed Royale Union SG, from Belgium, 4-1. The global score was 5-2 in favor of the Germans, who did not have the world champion Exequiel Palacios in this second commitment.
The semifinals between Juventus-Sevilla and Roma-Bayer Leverkusen will take place on Thursday, May 11, while the return matches will take place a week later, on Thursday, May 18.
As for the final of the contest, it will take place on May 31st in the Puskas Arena in Budapest and there will be an assured Argentine presence, since the four teams that continue in the contest have footballers of this nationality in their squads.
