Chelsea looks to complete UEFA trophy collection by beating Betis in Conference League final

By Canadian Press on May 28, 2025.

Chelsea will look to become the first team to have all four of UEFA’s club competitions in its trophy collection by beating Real Betis in the Conference League final in Wroclaw, Poland, on Wednesday.

Chelsea has twice been king of Europe after winning the Champions League in 2012 and 2021. It also claimed the Europa League title — the successor to the UEFA Cup — in 2013 and 2019, and won the now-defunct Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971 and 1998.

The Conference League — Europe’s third-tier competition — was only founded in 2021 and has had three winners so far: Roma (2022), West Ham (2023) and Olympiacos (2024).

Chelsea would be the most high-profile winner of a competition created, in theory, to give teams from smaller nations more matches in Europe and a better chance of winning a UEFA trophy.

Chelsea, one of the top English clubs, only dropped into the Conference League because of its disappointing sixth-place finish in the Premier League last season.

Easily the biggest team in the competition, it has had a comfortable passage to the final — winning all six of its matches in the league phase and then getting past FC Copenhagen, Legia Warsaw and Djurgarden in the knockout stage.

Betis eyes first European trophy

Betis represents Chelsea’s toughest opponent yet, a team which finished in sixth place in the Spanish league and has some well-known faces in its lineup — such as former Real Madrid playmaker Isco, Argentina midfielder Giovani Lo Celso and on-loan Manchester United winger Antony — as well as in the dugout in former Manchester City and Madrid coach Manuel Pellegrini.

The Seville club won the Spanish league in the 1930s, three Copas del Rey — most recently in 2022 — but it is looking for a first trophy at continental level. This is Betis’ first European final.

The match is a bonus for Chelsea at the end of a season when it achieved its primary objective: Qualifying for the Champions League courtesy of a fourth-place finish in the Premier League.

Since the start of the 2001/02 season, all 23 finals in the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League featuring Spanish clubs have been won by a Spanish team, UEFA said. That includes four all-Spanish match-ups.

This season’s European finals

More than 40,000 will be at Stadion Wroclaw for the second European final of the season, after last week’s Europa League title match where Tottenham beat Manchester United 1-0.

The Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan takes place on Saturday.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Steve Douglas, The Associated Press

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