2012 UEFA Europa League Final

The 2012 UEFA Europa League Final was the final match of the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League, the 41st season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA (after the UEFA Champions League), and the 3rd season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. The match was played on 9 May 2012 at the Arena Națională in Bucharest, Romania, and was contested between two Spanish sides – Atlético Madrid and Athletic Bilbao. The match ended with Atlético Madrid winning 3–0, with Radamel Falcao scoring two goals and Diego scoring another.

The winners earned the right to play against Chelsea, the winners of the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League, in the 2012 UEFA Super Cup.

Venue
The Arena Națională was announced by UEFA as the venue of the 2012 final on 30 January 2010. This was the first final of a European football club competition hosted by Romania.

The stadium was built on the site of the former national stadium, and opened on 6 September 2011 with a UEFA Euro 2012 Group D qualifier match between Romania and France.

Background
This was the second consecutive Europa League final contested by two teams from the same nation, and the ninth time overall (including UEFA Cup). The only other all-Spanish final of UEFA's second club competition was the 2007 UEFA Cup Final, when Sevilla defeated Espanyol. That was also the last final where both finalist teams had played only in the UEFA Cup/Europa League in their routes to the final (rather than dropping down from the UEFA Champions League, either after the early knockout rounds or after the group stage).

Both teams have played in one previous Europa League/UEFA Cup final. Atlético Madrid won the first Europa League final after its renaming in 2010, beating Fulham 2–1 after extra time. Athletic Bilbao lost in 1977 to Juventus on away goals after the tie finished 2–2 on aggregate. The two teams have never met in European competition before. They have met each other in three Copa del Rey finals, with Athletic Bilbao winning two and Atlético Madrid winning one. In the 2011–12 La Liga season, Athletic Bilbao won their home fixture 3–0 and Atlético Madrid won their home fixture 2–1.

After losing to Udinese on 20 October 2011, Atlético Madrid went on a run of 11 straight victories to the final, a record in the European football, winning their remaining group games to top their group and then defeating four knockout opponents both home and away.

Road to final

 * † As a result of match-fixing allegations, Turkish club Fenerbahçe were removed from the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League and were replaced with Trabzonspor on 24 August 2011. As a result, Trabzonspor's second leg against Athletic Bilbao was cancelled, and Athletic Bilbao advanced to the group stage.

Ticketing
The two finalist teams received 9,000 tickets each for distributing to their supporters. 20,000 tickets have been sold to local football fans with a further 3,000 tickets available for sale to fans worldwide via UEFA.com, with prices between 100 RON and 500 RON. The remaining tickets are allocated to the local organising committee, UEFA’s 53 national football associations, and commercial and broadcast partners.

Ambassador
Former Romanian player Miodrag Belodedici was named as the ambassador for the final.