SEVILLE, SPAIN - APRIL 16: Carlos Bacca of Sevilla (9) celebrates with Timothee Kolodziejczak (15) as as he scores their second goal during the UEFA Europa League Quarter Final first leg match between FC Sevilla and FC Zenit at Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan on April 16, 2015 in Seville, Spain. (Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images)
Europa League first leg semifinal games are on tonight with defending champions Sevilla of Spain taking on Fioretina of Italy while Napoli takes on Dnipro.
Sevilla will play their first leg at home at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan and will be keen to win to harbor hope of retaining the Europa League trophy
Fiorentina coach Vincenzo Montella says Sevilla‘s favourites tag will motivate his team to get a win away from home.
“For Sevilla to be considered a favourite is more of a source of motivation for us than anything else,” Montella told reporters.
Sevilla has a good La Liga home record this season with 12 wins, five draws and one home defeat which came on the weekend against Real Madrid.
Fiorentina has had a dip in form with four straight defeats but they ended that sequence with a 3-1 home win over Cesena at the weekend.
It will be a hard game for the travelling Team and they will need to play extremely well to avoid defeat.
How they got there
Fiorentina: Tottenham Hotspur (3-1 on aggregate) – Roma (4-1 agg.)- Dynamo Kyiv (3-1 agg.)
Sevilla: Borussia Monchengladbach (4-2 agg.)- Villarreal (5-2 agg.)- Zenit St. Petersburg (4-3 agg.)
Colombian striker Carlos Bacca is Sevilla’s leading scorer with four Europa League goals while Peruvian midfielder Juan Vargas tops Fioretina’s scoring chats with three goals.
Possible lineups
Sevilla: Rico; Coke, Carriço, Kolodziejczak, Trémoulinas; Banega, Krychowiak; Aleix Vidal, Iborra, Vitolo; Bacca.
• Doubtful: Beto (shoulder)
• Out: Pareja (knee)
Fiorentina: Neto; Tomović, Savić, Gonzalo Rodríguez, Alonso; Borja Valero, Pizarro, Fernández; Joaquín, Salah, Gomez.
• Out: Babacar (knee), Rossi (knee)
Meanwhile Napoli will host Ukrainian Premier League side Dnipro at the Stadio San Paolo.
Napoli have lost just one game in this competition this season, a group stage match away at Young Boys and Dnipro will have to be at their best to win in Naples.
Napoli manager Raphael Benitez is not expecting anything less than guiding his Team to the finals of the competition.
“The prize for going through is nothing less than a place in the final of a European competition,” said Benitez
How they got there
Napoli: Trabzonspor (5-0 agg.)-Dinamo Moscow (3-1 agg.)-Wolfsburg (6-3 agg.)
Napoli’s leading goal scorer in the Europa League is Gonzalo Higuain (7) with the trio of Jonathan De Guzman, Marek Hamsik and Dries Mertens all having scored (4 goals each).
Dnipro: Olympiacos (4-2 agg.)-Ajax (2-2 agg. on away goals) and Club Brugges in the quarterfinals.
Possible lineups
Napoli: Andújar; Maggio, Albiol, Britos, Ghoulam; Inler, López; Insigne, Callejón, Hamšík; Higuaín.
• Out: Gargano (thigh), Michu (thigh), Zúñiga (unspecified), De Guzmán (unspecified)
Dnipro: Boyko; Fedetskiy, Douglas, Cheberyachko, Léo Matos; Kankava, Rotan, Fedorchuk, Luchkevych, Konoplyanka; Kalinić.
• Out: Mazuch (knee), Zozulya (knee), Shakhov (unspecified)
Match fact
• These sides met in the group stage of the 2012/13 UEFA Europa League, with their encounter in Italy proving memorable for Edinson Cavani.
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