Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Braga and SC Freiburg are the four semi-finalist of the UEFA Europa League 2025/26, after Celta de Vido, Real Betis, Bologna and Porto were eliminated on Thursday's quarter-finals. Freiburg and Aston Villa were favourites, thrashing in the first leg and also in the second leg: Freiburg beat Celta 3-1, 6-1 on aggregate; while Aston Villa beat Bologna 4-0, 7-1 on aggregate.
Nottingham Forest was lucky after Porto was left with ten players after only eight minutes: a single goal by Morgan Gibbs-White sent the English side to semi-finals, winning 1-0, 2-1 on aggregate.
The surprise was Betis: after the 1-1 on the first leg, the Seville team scored two in the first half... but Braga responded, and the match went from 2-0 to 2-4. Betis, finalists last year in Conference League, are eliminated.
Europa League results from April 16:
Celta Vigo vs. Freiburg: 1-3 (1-6 aggregate)
Real Betis vs. Braga: 2-4 (3-5 aggregate)
Nottingham Forest vs. Porto: 1-0 (2-1 aggregate)
Aston Villa vs. Bologna: 4-0 (7-1 aggregate)