The Last Eight

Lyon are out. Roma are out. Stuttgart are out. The round of 16 eliminated the league phase's top finisher, the tactical flagship of Gian Piero Gasperini, and the Bundesliga side that had scored more goals than any other club in the competition this season. What remains is a quarter-final draw that is, by any measure, the most open the Europa League has produced in years — two Spanish sides, two Portuguese, two English, one German and one Italian, none of whom have won the competition in the past five seasons. Braga face Real Betis, Freiburg take on Celta Vigo, Porto meet Nottingham Forest, and Bologna are drawn against Aston Villa — with first legs on April 9 and second legs on April 16, and the final at Beşiktaş Park in Istanbul on May 20. Of the eight clubs remaining, two — Freiburg and Real Betis — are appearing in the last eight of a major European competition for the first time in their histories. One — Nottingham Forest — last won a European trophy in 1980. And one — Unai Emery's Aston Villa — is managed by the man who has won this competition more times than anyone else who has ever coached in it.

How the Eight Got Here — Round of 16 Results

The Round of 16 in Review

The definitive story of the round was Lyon's elimination. Paulo Fonseca's side had topped the league phase with seven wins from eight — the best record in the competition — but their second leg at home to Celta Vigo unravelled inside 20 minutes. Defender Moussa Niakhaté was dismissed in the 19th minute for a high challenge on Javi Rueda; Rueda then scored the only goal of the game on the hour, with Ferran Jutglà sealing it in stoppage time. A second red card for Nicolás Tagliafico left Lyon with nine men at the final whistle. The league phase leaders exited in silence. On the same evening, Real Betis swept aside Panathinaikos 4–0 in Seville — Aitor Ruibal after eight minutes, Sofyan Amrabat from range, Cucho Hernández and Antony completing the rout — to secure a first-ever Europa League quarter-final appearance.

The most dramatic tie of the round was all-Italian. After a 1–1 first leg in Bologna, the return at the Stadio Olimpico swung back and forth across 111 minutes: Evan N'Dicka's header cancelled out Jonathan Rowe's opener, Federico Bernardeschi's penalty restored Bologna's lead, Santi Castro made it 3–1, and then Lorenzo Pellegrini pulled one back. Into extra time it went — and Nicolò Cambiaghi, coming on as a substitute, scored the decisive goal in the 111th minute to send Bologna through 5–4 on aggregate. Freiburg's 5–1 demolition of Genk — overturning a 1–0 first-leg deficit — confirmed the competition's most emphatic reversal. ESPN's full scoreboard for March 19 shows Porto's 2–0 second-leg win over Stuttgart — goals from William Gomes and Vidar Froholdt — completing a clinical 4–1 aggregate passage for Francesco Farioli's side, and Aston Villa's measured 2–0 home win over Lille, with John McGinn and Leon Bailey scoring either side of a Martínez assist that became one of the talking points of the round.

The Quarter-Final Draw

Braga vs Real Betis — First-Timers, Same Bracket

Both clubs are in the Europa League quarter-finals for the first time. Both overturned first-leg deficits to get here. And both did so with a conviction that suggested they had been building toward this moment across the entire campaign. Braga — in their seventh successive two-legged European tie win — came back from 2–0 down against Ferencváros with a 4–0 home performance described by UEFA as a display of "resilience and collective belief." Real Betis, under Manuel Pellegrini, secured their landmark quarter-final place with a controlled 4–0 dismantling of Panathinaikos at La Cartuja. Braga's best previous Europa League result was a semi-final in 2016–17; this campaign has already matched that benchmark and now offers the chance to surpass it. The first leg is in Braga, on April 8. Betis return home for the second. Neither side will travel as favourites.

Freiburg vs Celta Vigo — The Bundesliga Debutants vs Galicia

Freiburg have never been in the last eight of a major European competition before this week. That their arrival here came via a 5–1 demolition of Genk — after losing 1–0 in Belgium in the first leg — makes their presence all the more remarkable. Vincenzo Grifo's club-record 106th Freiburg goal set the tone for a performance of total control; Yuito Suzuki and Maximilian Eggestein added further goals to confirm the passage. Julian Schuster's side are tactically compact, quick on transitions and deeply difficult to break down. Celta Vigo, as Sky Sports noted ahead of the round of 16, finished seventh in La Liga last season before entering Europa League qualifying — a journey that has brought them to the last eight via eliminations of PAOK and Lyon, the latter having led the competition's league phase with seven wins from eight. Eliminating the league-phase leaders, albeit with a significant red-card advantage, is a result that demands respect. The first leg is in Freiburg; Celta host the return at Balaídos.

Porto vs Nottingham Forest — European Royalty Meets English Revival

No tie in the quarter-finals carries more historical weight. Porto are the most decorated club in this competition's history — two-time winners of the UEFA Cup and Europa League — and arrive having eliminated Stuttgart with a composed 4–1 aggregate display, William Gomes and Vidar Froholdt scoring in the decisive second leg. Nottingham Forest, on the other side, are managed by a man who knows Porto intimately: Vítor Pereira won two Primeira Liga titles at the Estádio do Dragão between 2011 and 2013. Forest reached this stage via a round of 16 tie against Midtjylland that required a penalty shoot-out — losing the first leg 1–0 at the City Ground before winning 2–1 in Denmark after extra time, with Gibbs-White, Sangaré and Neco Williams converting all three penalties as Midtjylland missed every one of theirs. Forest have not reached the quarter-finals of a major European competition since 1984 — the year before their last league title. Porto host the first leg. The personal subplot makes Pereira's return to the Dragão one of the most charged individual stories of the entire round.

Bologna vs Aston Villa — Emery's Record vs Italy's Revelation

The tie on the other side of the semi-final bracket combines the most tactically coherent English side in the competition with the most surprising Italian club. Bologna are in only their second season of European football, but their 5–4 extra-time victory over Roma — Cambiaghi's 111th-minute winner sealing a tie that had swung five times across two legs — announced them as a side that does not yield when threatened. Aston Villa, under Unai Emery, have been one of the competition's most consistent sides since September — finishing second in the league phase and eliminating Lille with a controlled 3–0 aggregate. Goal.com's bracket analysis notes that Villa dropped just three points across the entire league phase — level on 21 points with Lyon at the top — while Bologna, in only their second European campaign, have already surpassed their inaugural season's Champions League group-stage exit and won the Coppa Italia for the first time since 1974. Bologna host the first leg. For Emery, whose four Europa League titles with Sevilla and Villarreal make him the competition's most successful manager in history, a fifth would stand entirely alone.

The Eight Teams: Profiles and Path

What This Quarter-Final Stage Means

The 2025/26 Europa League quarter-finals carry a bracket logic that raises the possibility of an all-Spanish semi-final on one side and a cross-channel English-Italian collision on the other. If Braga and Real Betis both advance, SF1 becomes an Iberian derby. If Porto and Forest reach the last four alongside Bologna and Villa, SF2 becomes the most anticipated English-Italian European club tie since the 2000s. None of those outcomes are guaranteed — but all of them are plausible. UEFA's official quarter-final and semi-final bracket confirmation locks in first legs on April 8–9 and second legs on April 16, with semi-final first legs on April 30 and second legs on May 7.

The final is on May 20 in Istanbul — at Beşiktaş Park, a stadium that has hosted a European final before, and a city that has hosted one of the most famous nights in this competition's history. For at least one of these eight clubs, the road ends there with a trophy. For the others, it ends with the knowledge that they went further than any of them had gone before. Either way, Istanbul is the destination. The journey begins in nine days.

Explore the Europa League journey