In the game, the Europa League is the second European club competition, alongside the Champions League: 48 teams, split into twelve groups of four, played home and away — just like the Champions League. From there it's all knockout, almost always over two legs — round of 32, round of 16, quarter-finals and semi-finals —, with the final decided in a single match at a neutral venue. Winning everything from the start to the title is therefore fifteen games unbeaten, this competition's 15-0 badge: two more than the Champions League's 13-0, because here the knockout stage starts one round earlier, right at the round of 32. UEFA treats this competition and the old UEFA Cup as the same trophy, with a continuous roll of honour dating back to 1971-72.
It's also the most Portuguese of the game's international competitions: FC Porto were champions in 2003 and 2011, Sporting CP were runners-up in 2005, Benfica were runners-up in 2013 and 2014 — and the 2011 final was an all-Portuguese Porto v Sporting de Braga tie, the only European final ever contested between two Portuguese clubs. In total, Portuguese clubs have reached seven finals in this competition. This competition's database, however, is narrower than it looks: it only holds champions and runners-up, the lineups from the finals that decided the trophy, and nothing else. There are huge names in Europa League history left out purely for that reason — Aritz Aduriz has 26 goals in the competition and was on the bench for the 2012 final, Huntelaar has 30 and never reached one. That's not a flaw in the rule: it's the rule working as intended, because the pantheon is drawn from whoever the competition put in its finals, and no one else.
As in every competition in the game, the 100 doesn't belong to whoever had the single best campaign — it belongs to whoever dominates the competition's HISTORY; the card's season is only the one that shows it best, not the criterion itself. In the Europa League, that player is Radamel Falcao. And the pantheon carries a signature of its own: four of the eleven icons played for Sevilla, who have won this competition seven times — more than any other club — and are the only club in European history to win it three years running, from 2014 to 2016. An eleven for this competition without a good handful of Sevilla players would describe a different competition. Within this game, it's also the easiest competition to forget: for weeks it was missing from the list of names behind shared campaigns, and a Europa League campaign would show up simply as "Campaign", with no one noticing — because there was no error to flag, just a missing name.
The competition's all-time great
Radamel Falcao — 2010-11
Radamel Falcao scored 17 goals in a single Europa League edition — the record for this competition, tied with Cristiano Ronaldo's 17 in the 2013-14 Champions League — in just 14 matches, including a goal in the final. The card is from the 2010-11 season, at FC Porto, the same one as the only European final ever contested between two Portuguese clubs (Porto v Sporting de Braga). The following year, by then at Atlético Madrid and in another country, he was again the competition's top scorer, again scored in the final — twice this time — and won again: 30 goals in 31 matches in total, with two straight titles at two different clubs.
GK
Walter Zenga — 1993-94
Walter Zenga has 69 UEFA Cup appearances — the 6th-highest total in the competition's history, and the highest among winning goalkeepers — and two titles with Internazionale, three years apart. The card is from the 1993-94 season, the one with the second title.
RB
Berti Vogts — 1978-79
Berti Vogts played three UEFA Cup finals (1972-73, 1974-75 and 1978-79) and won two of them — more finals than any other full-back in the competition's history. The card is from the 1978-79 season, the second title, and the only one of the three in which the final's lineup sheet has him listed in the position he actually played.
CB
Giuseppe Bergomi — 1993-94
Giuseppe Bergomi holds the all-time appearance record in the UEFA Cup: 96 games, all with Internazionale, with two titles and a third final played. The card is from the 1993-94 season, the second title.
CB
Daniel Carriço — 2015-16
Daniel Carriço started in all three finals of Sevilla's three-peat (2014, 2015 and 2016) — three straight titles, enough to make him the most decorated centre-back in the competition's history. The card is from the 2015-16 season, the third title.
LB
José Antonio Camacho — 1984-85
José Antonio Camacho won the UEFA Cup twice running with Real Madrid (1985 and 1986) and is the only genuine left-back among the candidates for that record — the other players with two titles only played that position on loan, for a single lineup sheet. The card is from the 1984-85 season, the first title.
CDM
Dino Baggio — 1994-95
Dino Baggio won the Europa League three times with two different clubs — Juventus in 1992-93 and Parma in 1994-95 and 1998-99 — and scored five goals in finals of this competition, the highest figure in the competition's history, level with Jupp Heynckes. The card is from the 1994-95 season because it is the only one of the three finals whose lineup sheet actually lists him as a defensive midfielder — in the other two he played further forward (right winger in 1992-93, midfielder in 1998-99) — and it was in this one that he scored two of the five goals.
This is the most contested slot in the midfield, so the reasoning is written out in full. Fernando has the same three titles — FC Porto in 2011, Sevilla in 2020 and 2023 —, with twelve years between the first and the last, but he scored none of them in a final. By the performance yardstick this competition wrote for itself, in which a goal in a final is the tie-breaker that weighs most, the Italian comes out comfortably ahead. The idea that he managed it by playing for stronger sides does not hold either: measured against the average of their own editions, the two squads sit less than a quarter of a percentage point apart. What was left in Fernando's favour was duration — twelve years and two countries, against six for Dino Baggio — but that is exactly what this yardstick does not weigh.
CM
Nicola Berti — 1990-91
Nicola Berti scored in the final of each of the two titles he won with Internazionale — 1991 and 1994 — a goal for each triumph. He has held this spot since September 2026: the midfielder who had it before him, Éver Banega, has three Europa League titles in six years — more than any other midfielder in the competition — but no goals on record in this competition's evidence, in a final or otherwise. By this house's rule, a goal inside the knockout rounds outweighs one extra title without it. The card is from the 1990-91 season, not 1993-94 — Berti's other title — because that season already has two icons from the same Inter side, goalkeeper Walter Zenga and centre-back Giuseppe Bergomi; the argument, scoring in the final of each title, holds equally for both seasons.
CAM
Enzo Maresca — 2006-07
Enzo Maresca won the UEFA Cup twice running and scored twice in the 2006 final, which Sevilla won 4-0 — the biggest single-leg final margin in this competition's history. An attacking midfielder scoring twice in a European final is rare in any competition. The card is from the 2006-07 season.
RW
José Antonio Reyes — 2014-15
José Antonio Reyes holds the all-time Europa League title record: five, confirmed by UEFA — two with Atlético Madrid (2010 and 2012) and three with Sevilla (2014, 2015 and 2016), during the club's three-peat. He died in 2019, aged 35. The card is from the 2014-15 season.
LW
Jorge Valdano — 1985-86
Jorge Valdano won the competition twice running with Real Madrid, in 1985 and 1986, and scored three goals across those two finals — one in the first, two in the second. The card is from the 1985-86 season, the final in which he scored the two goals.
The comparison that settled the slot is with Vitolo, and it is written down because it is not obvious. The Spaniard started in all three finals of Sevilla's three-peat (2014, 2015 and 2016), always as a left winger — one more title than Valdano — but scored in none of them. Because this competition only keeps the starting elevens of its finals, scoring in a final is the one thing every single player in it had an equal chance to do, and that is why it is the heaviest criterion when the ratings are worked out: by that measure Valdano is clearly ahead, and that is why his base rating is the higher of the two. The usual counter-argument — that his Real Madrid was a far stronger side than average — does not survive measurement: set against the average of their own editions, that Real Madrid and that Sevilla are worth practically the same, and the gap between them changes sign depending on how you count. What was left in Vitolo's favour was a palmarés earned as a starter — three titles against two, a start in all three finals that decided them — but it is the goal in the final, not the title count, that this competition chose to weigh more.
ST
Jupp Heynckes — 1974-75
Jupp Heynckes scored 23 goals in 21 UEFA Cup matches — the best goals-per-game ratio of the competition's all-time top-18 — was the competition's top scorer twice (1972-73 and 1974-75) and scored five goals in finals, as many as the record holder. The card is from the 1974-75 season: champion, top scorer of the edition, and author of a hat-trick in the second leg of the final — a feat this competition wouldn't see again until a 2024 final.