Semi-final first-leg facts and figures
Friday, May 8, 2015
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ACF Fiorentina's record away run ends, Sevilla FC stretch their winning home run to nine, the semi-finals' first score draw and an approaching milestone for Unai Emery.
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• Sevilla FC's 3-0 victory over ACF Fiorentina was their ninth in succession at home in the UEFA Europa League – just one behind the record shared by Club Atlético de Madrid and SL Benfica.
• Fiorentina's defeat was their first away from home in the UEFA Europa League, ending a competition-record sequence of 11 matches. It was only their third in 23 matches in the competition overall, the previous losses having come in Florence against Juventus (0-1) and FC Dinamo Minsk (1-2).
• Sevilla's win was the second biggest in a UEFA Europa League semi-final – after FC Porto's 5-1 victory against Villarreal CF in 2010/11, also in the first leg. No team has won a last-four tie by more than three goals.
• Sevilla coach Unai Emery took charge of his 48th UEFA Europa League match at home to Fiorentina – ten more than any other coach – and will reach the half-century in Warsaw should his team reach the final.
• Only one team has ever retrieved a three-goal deficit in a UEFA Europa League knockout phase tie, Valencia CF recovering from a 3-0 first-leg defeat to beat FC Basel 1893 5-0 after extra time at home in the 2013/14 quarter-finals.
• SSC Napoli and FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk provided the first score draw in a UEFA Europa League semi-final. There had previously been two goalless draws at this stage of the competition, with the away team prevailing on both occasions – Fulham FC against Hamburger SV in 2009/10 (0-0 away, 2-1 at home) and Benfica against Juventus last season (2-1 at home, 0-0 away).
• Although there had never previously been a 1-1 draw in the semi-finals, that scoreline is now the most common over the six seasons of the UEFA Europa League, group stage to final, occurring 138 times. The next most frequent result is 1-0 (137 occasions).
• The first-leg results leave Fiorentina and Napoli tied with SS Lazio as the Italian clubs with the most UEFA Europa League victories, 13 apiece. No Serie A side has appeared in the final of the revamped competition.
