Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech is relishing playing his former club Chelsea in the Europa League final, which could make for a "remarkable end" to his glittering career.

He helped his side reach the final in Baku on May 29 with a thumping 7-3 aggregate victory over Valencia on Thursday, while Chelsea saw off Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties to set up an all-London showdown.

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"It would be a remarkable end to my career if I play a European final against my former team," Cech, who made 333 appearances for Chelsea between 2004 and 2015, told BT Sport.

"You have days when you play well and you think you could continue but I've made the decision to retire with a lot of thought. I could possibly go on another two years but I'd rather retire too early than too late. I wanted to do it on my terms."

Cech, who started the season as the club's No. 1 but lost his place to Bernd Leno, has played in every Europa League knockout round, keeping two clean sheets against Napoli in the quarterfinals.

With Arsenal all but out of the running for a top-four finish in the Premier League -- they require an eight-goal swing and for fourth-placed Tottenham to lose -- manager Unai Emery must decide whether to give Cech an extra 90 minutes of football in the final league match to prepare for Baku.

"With all my experience I can compensate for the match rhythm with my preparation," said the 36-year-old former Czech international, who announced in January that he would retire at the end of the season.

"The key is always how you prepare in training and I always behave the same whether I am starting or on the bench. I always feel confident that I'm ready to play.

"The last dream was to play this European final and it has come true. Now the dream is to win it."

England became the first country to provide two finalists in both European competitions in the same season after Chelsea and Arsenal made it through to the title match in the Europa League on Thursday.

It adds up to a season of domination for English clubs in Europe, with Liverpool and Tottenham reaching the final of the Champions League this week by overturning three-goal aggregate deficits at various stages of their semifinals against Barcelona and Ajax, respectively.

Chelsea beat Eintracht Frankfurt 4-3 in a penalty shootout at Stamford Bridge, after a second straight 1-1 draw between the teams in the semifinals.

Arsenal's path to the final was more straightforward, beating Valencia 4-2 thanks to a hat trick from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to complete a 7-3 win on aggregate.

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The Champions League final will take place in Madrid on June 1. This is the seventh time two teams from the same country will meet in the Champions League final, and the fourth time in the past seven seasons. It is the second time two English clubs have met in the UCL final, the last coming in 2008 between Manchester United and Chelsea.

The Europa League final will be staged in Baku, Azerbaijan, on May 29. It is the first time since the 1972 UEFA Cup -- when Wolverhampton Wanderers took on Tottenham -- that two English teams squared off for the title in any of that competition's various guises.

Arsenal will likely need to win the game to get into next season's Champions League as it probably won't finish in the top four of the Premier League. Chelsea is already guaranteed a top-four finish heading into the final round of fixtures this weekend.

There is guaranteed to be an all-English UEFA Super Cup in August in Istanbul as that match will pit the winners of the competitions.

"It's not easy for an English team to arrive in the last month in a good condition physically," Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri said of his side after Thursday's win. "We play more than other countries. We played match 61 today. It's a big difference with other countries."

Chelsea have the final match of the Premier League against Leicester City on Sunday then a friendly to play in the United States before earning 10 days' rest to prepare for the final in Baku.

A game between London rivals Chelsea and Arsenal normally covers a distance of six miles. For the May 29 final, they will need to travel 2,469 miles to Azerbaijan.

"Here [in England] the level is very high," Sarri added. "To get into the League Cup final [in February], we had to play Liverpool and Tottenham and then played the best team in Europe, Manchester City. The Premier League is the best league in the world."

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

LONDON -- Eden Hazard vowed to try and sign off with a trophy if the Europa League final proves to be his last game to Chelsea after scoring the winning penalty in a dramatic shootout win over Eintracht Frankfurt at Stamford Bridge.

Kepa Arrizabalaga saved two spot kicks after Luka Jovic's 49th-minute strike had cancelled out Ruben Loftus-Cheek's first-half opener, leaving Hazard to coolly send Eintracht goalkeeper Kevin Trapp the wrong way from 12 yards and set up a mouthwatering final with London rivals Arsenal in Baku.

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Sources have told ESPN FC that Hazard wants his desired summer transfer to Real Madrid finalised as soon as possible, but after the match the Belgian refused to confirm if the Europa League final will be his last match for Chelsea.

"If it's my last game I will try to do everything for this club to win a trophy," Hazard told BT Sport. "In my mind I don't know yet. I don't think about that. I'm only thinking about winning something for this club and this squad."

Asked about his decisive penalty, Hazard added: "I always take my responsibility when I have to. Today we are happy but it's not finished. We have another game to play against Arsenal. We need to go there and play with quality and win the game."

Kepa emerged as Chelsea's other hero after 120 gruelling minutes against Eintracht, but after the match the Spain international played down his own contribution to the victory.

"Penalties are down to luck," said Kepa. "Today we won and in the Carabao Cup final we lost, but this is football. Today was really good and we played against a very difficult team and we are very happy.

"We always prepare for the penalty shooters before each game and today we are lucky. Wembley is in the past and I learned from it. I said I was sorry but we always keep moving forward and today was another game and we are happy to get to the final."

The win also preserves Maurizio Sarri's hopes of claiming silverware in his first season at Chelsea, but first the Italian must take his squad to the United States next week for a friendly against New England Revolution to raise money and awareness for the fight against anti-Semitism.

"We played 61 matches, so it's very difficult," Sarri admitted. "We need to rest, of course. Unfortunately we have to go to the U.S. to play a match. And then we have, after the U.S., 10 days to prepare the last match.

"We played the first final [this season] against Manchester City and lost. So now we want to win. In our opinion, our group deserves to win. We were in trouble three months ago and, here in England, if you're in trouble the level of opponents is very high and it's not easy to overcome difficulties. We were able to do it. So now we deserve to win a trophy."

LONDON -- Eden Hazard was shot, knackered, spent. The Europa League is not his stage, not really; everybody knows that and it is one reason why, as Chelsea plugged along through their previous 15 outings in the competition, he had only been wheeled out for 228 minutes in total. Here he had dragged himself through an entire two hours of Thursday's semifinal second leg, those whirring legs slowing up to eventually resemble paddles sludging their way through mud. The juice had run out; the ideas had really too. Eintracht Frankfurt had brought this tie to a knife edge and, with it, had put Hazard's grand finale on the line.

Stamford Bridge is Hazard's stage. It has been for seven years now, no matter what the competition. Hazard's fire has raged during that time, ever so occasionally dying down to merely a flicker. He has slalomed his way to titles; bewitched his way to individual awards; carried dying teams on his shoulders; jinked into the club's pantheon of greats to such an extent that the drawn-out, opaque departure process he has undergone this season has drawn barely a murmur of disapproval from the stands.

But Hazard had never faced a situation like this. He had watched Cesar Azpilicueta miss in the shootout and give Eintracht one foot on the final. He had then seen Kepa Arrizabalaga, wise to Martin Hinteregger's attempt to drill the ball down the middle, stand firm and wedge it between his legs. He knew his time was coming when Goncalo Paciencia, his stuttering run-up postage stamped with inevitability, let Kepa save again. Now, he had his chance: one last shot for one last final; one last shot in front of the crowd that he adores and who have, with no need for encouragement, reciprocated that in bundles; one last moment of high drama to bookend the lightning bolts of sheer magic.

Hazard did not miss. Nobody seriously thought he would; that he would score was probably the nearest thing to a certainty on a wild, snarling night that swung this way and that. He sent Kevin Trapp the wrong way, perhaps grateful for the 10 minutes he had been given to clear his mind since the end of extra time. It was a crisp, lucid finish; they usually are, and as most of his teammates flocked to mob Kepa, Hazard ran slightly behind, eyes trained on the Shed End's mass of part-relieved, part-delirious limbs.

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"I always take my responsibility," Hazard said afterward. His responsibility was to score, whether or not this was his last kick of a ball at Stamford Bridge; but if he is indeed to leave Chelsea this summer, there is something else at play too. He has helped them to hold their nerve domestically -- to a sounder degree than their rivals, in any case -- and quality for next season's Champions League. If he can send himself off with a second Europa League title, beating Arsenal in Baku and adding to the trophy won in 2012-13, then perhaps he can leave in the knowledge that a fractured club is finally beginning to heal.

Because, make no mistake, Chelsea's home is a complex, troubled place.

Five minutes before the end of normal time, Maurizio Sarri replaced Ruben Loftus-Cheek -- the scorer of their first-half opener but a diminishing influence as Eintracht clawed their way back into the tie -- with the fresher legs of Ross Barkley. Ordinarily, it should not have been a controversial move, but the disdain for Sarri, palpable since the winter, needed little excuse to rear its head even on what was, whether they liked it or not, Chelsea's biggest game of the season. The boos rang out from all four sides; it was far removed from the expectant, supportive environment that might be expected when things were going to the wire against excellent opponents, but nothing about this season in west London has fitted preconceived notions.

Everything feels on thin ice here. Sarri has steered them to a respectable finish and might well top that with a European trophy, but his philosophy, his preference for method over indignant, us-against-the-world belligerence, simply does not seem to fit. When Eintracht's brilliant young striker Luka Jovic equalised after half-time, the tension was that of a crowd waiting to turn.

"Over the 120 minutes, we were the better team and had the better chances," the Eintracht coach Adi Hutter claimed. He was probably right: The substitute Sebastien Haller saw two extra-time efforts cleared off the line; and from beginning to end, it was only the visiting supporters -- surely the loudest, most inventive bunch heard at any top-level match in England this year -- who seemed energised to offer unconditional support.

They and their vibrant team, which faces a breakup comparable to that of Champions League heroes Ajax, deserved more. But Chelsea themselves might lose a huge part of their modern identity come August. The chances of seeing anyone capable of such sustained brilliance as Hazard -- whose name was greeted with bellows of approval before kickoff as a flag bearing his image was passed along the Matthew Harding Stand -- gracing this turf in the foreseeable future are remote.

At least they could wring out every last drop here. It was Hazard who set up Loftus-Cheek's goal before, by his exacting standards, failing to match perspiration with end product. That was before he settled the issue, threw his shirt to the crowd and disappeared down the tunnel for what was surely the final time.

"In my mind, I don't know yet," he said, inscrutable as ever, when asked about his future. "If it is my last game [against Arsenal], I will try to do everything."

One last flourish could yet fix Chelsea and Sarri. But after delivering so poetically here, you wonder what more he could possibly do.

VALENCIA, Spain -- Unai Emery's first campaign will be deemed a success or a failure based upon the 58th and final game of Arsenal's season.

After the dreadful performance in a 1-1 draw at Brighton on Sunday effectively confirmed that Arsenal would miss out on Champions League qualification through the conventional route, this hugely impressive 4-2 victory away at the Mestalla means they'll travel to Baku, Azerbaijan, later this month to face rivals Chelsea to earn a place in Europe's premier competition for 2019-20.

It was Emery's prowess in the Europa League that led to his appointment in the first place. His three straight triumphs with Sevilla between 2014 and 2016 made him an ideal candidate for the role, and while Arsenal's recent slump means their league finish is a disappointment, it's worth remembering that Arsenal started the campaign as very much sixth favourites for the top four.

The Europa League always seemed of huge importance to Arsenal this season, and Emery has successfully steered Arsenal through tricky ties against Napoli and Valencia, where Arsenal have taken two-goal first-leg leads away from home and not merely defended them, but added to their margins of victory.

This was a huge test for Emery, against the club with which he spent a four-year spell and made his name as top-level coach. The home supporters' welcome wasn't friendly, with anti-Emery chants as the Arsenal coach arrived, boos when Emery emerged from the tunnel and an electric atmosphere from the outset.

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Initially, this looked like being a long night for Arsenal. Kevin Gameiro's opener arrived in just the 11th minute, then five minutes later, Rodrigo sent a fizzing half-volley narrowly wide of the far post from outside the box. It would have put Valencia ahead in the tie. Arsenal were hanging on.

But then Arsenal burst into life with a goal out of absolutely nothing. There was a clever touch from Alexandre Lacazette to provide the assist, but this was really all about the finish, swept into the net from outside the box, with the outside of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's right foot. It was an unusual, elegant finish and contrasted sharply with his late miss against Brighton at the weekend, when he tried to engineer an outside-of-the-boot finish with an elaborate scissor-kick. In some ways, these incidents summarise Aubameyang, a prolific striker who nevertheless sometimes struggles to convert the easiest of chances.

On this day, he was clinical, but it wasn't just the goals that he and his strike partner earned praise from Emery for: "They are very good strikers, but I am proud of them because of how they worked defensively. We needed that today, and the big players can be good as strikers, but [I am happy] when their commitment is like today, defensively."

But this was his best performance in an Arsenal shirt. It was a game that suited him; with Valencia forced to do the running and Arsenal allowed to play on the counterattack, this meant Aubameyang could concentrate on using his speed into the channels. He and Lacazette rotated positions but positioned themselves wide rather than as a central strike duo, with Mesut Ozil prowling behind in a 3-4-1-2.

Aubameyang, as ever, missed chances. His headed effort from a corner was wayward, his left-footed effort after good interplay on the edge of the box was tame. But this always felt like his game. Toward the end of the first half, he sped down the right and cut the ball back for Lacazette, who swept a shot against the outside of the post. It felt like Arsenal might live to regret that.

Lacazette can let his head drop after that type of miss, but Aubameyang always remains bright, lively and energetic, and it was his determination and ambition that created Arsenal's second, with Lacazette the beneficiary. Aubameyang hesitated when confronted with Jose Gaya, knowing the full-back could match him for pace. And sure enough, his knock past the left-back was reached first by Gaya, but Aubameyang won back possession immediately, the ball fell to Torreira and he transferred it into Lacazette, who made no mistake. Aubameyang had successfully counterpressed his own concession of possession. Valencia now needed four goals, and a once-raucous Mestalla started to empty.

The Gabon international wasn't finished, though. His second came from a classic near-post run across the opposition centre-backs to convert a low ball from Ainsley Maitland-Niles. The 21-year-old had spent the first half under pressure as Valencia concentrated their attacks down his flank but ended the game having provided the most memorable moment of his Arsenal career to date.

And Aubameyang can say the same, after he completed his hat trick with two minutes remaining, slamming the ball into the top of the net from a tight angle on the right. It felt like confirmation of his brilliance, the type of moment Thierry Henry used to provide away from home on European nights in that same No. 14 shirt -- away at Inter, away at Roma and away at Real Madrid, to mention a few.

Those were all Champions League nights, and no Europa League game can ever be considered on the same level. But that, of course, is the whole point: Arsenal desperately yearn for a return to that competition, and on this occasion, Aubameyang looked like a Champions League player in a Europa League tie. Another performance like that in Baku and Arsenal will be back in the big time.

Australia coach Justin Langer said he "slept a lot better" after Steven Smith showed some of his best form since returning from elbow surgery with the unbeaten 89 in the second match against the New Zealand XI on Wednesday.

Smith dominated the back-end of the Australian innings, collecting 39 off his last 17 deliveries with increasingly dominant strokeplay including four sixes, three of them lofted drives and the other a pull, as he continued his recovery from the operation he had in January.

Smith found form during the latter part of his IPL stint with Rajasthan Royals, hitting three half-centuries in five innings, before making 22 in the opening match in Brisbane batting at No. 4 before his eye-catching display at No. 5.

"I certainly slept a lot better, it warmed my heart to be honest," Langer told SEN. "I watched him on the weekend, he had a nets session on Sunday night and I was sitting with a couple of coaches and I just said 'How good is this kid'. We've seen the statistics and we know the stories but when you see him first hand…[The 89] was a tutorial in batting. It's great for the team."

There remain a few question marks over Smith's ability to throw at full tilt due to his elbow, but a diving catch he took in the first match suggested progress is being made. He has also impressed the management with his general fitness levels since returning to national colours for the first time since his ban.

There were fewer form-related questions surrounding David Warner heading into the pre-tournament camp following is prolific IPL with the main debate surrounding the position he will bat. He was at No. 3 in the first match before opening with Aaron Finch in the second and Usman Khawaja in the third as all the combinations were tried.

Langer said the "obvious" choice was that Warner would open but did not go as far as to confirm that would happen following the success of the Finch-Khawaja pairing in Australia's run of eight consecutive wins against India and Pakistan.

"The obvious thing is we should [open with Warner]," Langer said. "But I think he's quite an adaptable player, too. What I've loved is the partnership between Finchy and Usman Khawaja as well. They gel really well and in the past Finch and Warner gelled really well. I'm not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, but we've got really good options there."

The other question that still needs to be decided around the batting line-up is which player misses out presuming that Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis will take the five and six positions. It could be that Shaun Marsh, who scored four centuries in eight innings against England, South Africa and India does not find a spot in the side.