While you were working

Yes in comparison the Europa League is like the little brother to the Champions League like the NIT is to the NCAA Basketball Tournament , but believe me when I say this the Europa League provides great games and far more excitement than anything the mediocre NIT ever brought to the table.

What the Europa League does a lot of the time is expose some of the best teams around Europe that are unheard. Just a couple of years back Zenit St. Petersburg went on an incredible run to win the Cup, which exposed many great players like Andrei Arshavin (Arsenal, Russian National) and Yuri Zhirkov just before those players helped lead Russia to the semifinals of the 2008 Euro Cup semifinals.

Today as the second leg of the semifinals got underway for both games - Liverpool vs. Atletico Madrid and Fulham vs. Hamburg - Rich and I were rooting for an all-England final.

Trailing 1-0 after the first leg Alberto Aquilani's goal in the first half to level the score on aggregate in regulation followed by Yossi Benayoun's strike in the half of over-time looked like it would be good enough to get Liverpool through to the finals. However, old foe (dating back to his Manchester United days) Diego Forlan struck for the second time in the semifinals for Atletico this time at Anfield to give Madrid a crucial away goal even though they were tied on aggregate 2-2. The game ended 2-1 and because of Forlan's away goal, Madrid moved on.

Tied at 0-0 after the first leg in Hamburg, coincidentally where the Europa League final will take place, Fulham defeated Hamburg 2-1 at Craven Cottage in London despite an early goal to open the scoring by Hamburg's Mladen Petric as second half strikes from Simon Davis and Zoltan Gera put Fulham through.

If you are a U.S. fan Fulham has to be one of the teams you keep an eye on year in and year out. They are almost like the European U.S. team, Carlos Bocanegra played there for a while, Brian McBride was the captain there for a while, Eddie Johnson played there until getting loaned out to Greece side Ares this year, and now MNT superstar and former New England Revolution man Clint Dempsey is wreaking havoc there.

Although Dempsey is the only remaining link to the U.S. there at the moment, how could you not root for this Fulham team they sit 12th in the English Premier League standings and needed a miraculous 3-match winning streak over Manchester City, Birmingham and Portsmouth back in the 2007/08 season just to avoid relegation in the EPL. They really have become the darling Cinderella of this competition and this is the team's first ever European final.

Check out the highlights, some insane goals and I love the Europa song.