Friday's Europa League final between Inter Milan and Sevilla will be a special occasion for head coaches Antonio Conte and Julen Lopetegui.

Neither manager has reached a UEFA final before and they are both just one victory away from marking their first season with their respective clubs in style.

Conte is easily the more successful of the two bosses overall, having won eight previous trophies, compared to Lopetegui's two - those coming for Spain at age-grade level.

Ahead of Inter's showdown with Sevilla in Cologne, Sports Mole looks at the two managers in a little more detail.

Following a short stint working as an assistant boss, Conte's first managerial job came at Serie B side Arezzo in July 2006.

The Italian initially lasted just three months, but he was reappointed the following year and tasked with saving the club from relegation, which he was unable to achieve.

Lopetegui's beginnings were also somewhat underwhelming, with the Spaniard being sacked by Rayo Vallecano 10 games into the 2003-04 campaign.

Like Arezzo, Vallecano dropped out of the second tier that season, so already there were parallels between the two managers.

They then took different routes, however, with Conte spending the next four years managing Bari, Atalanta and Siena, earning promotion to Serie A with two of those sides.

Lopetegui opted to focus more on coaching, taking up roles with the Spanish national side at Under-19s, Under-20s and Under-21s level during a similar timeframe.

Following years of links to Juventus, where he spent the vast majority of his playing career, Conte was appointed by the club in 2014.

Lopetegui's reward for Under-19 and Under-21 European Championship success with Spain, meanwhile, was a plum job with Portuguese giants Porto.

Despite being given a huge budget to work with, Lopetegui's return to club management ended terribly as he failed to win any silverware in two years at the Estadio do Dragao.

The complete opposite was true for Conte, who won the Serie A title in all three of his seasons with Juve and also picked up a couple of Coppas Italia.

However, he controversially quit in 2014 to fulfil a dream of managing Italy, a job that he stepped down from early two years later after reaching the Euro 2016 quarter-finals.

As Conte was saying goodbye to the international scene, Lopetegui was heading the opposite way after being appointed by Spain following Vicente del Bosque's retirement.

Lopetegui successfully guided a much-fancied La Roja to the 2018 World Cup, but his dream of managing in the biggest competition of them all crumbled on the eve of the tournament.

With Spain's preparations in full swing, Real Madrid announced that Lopetegui would be taking over as their new head coach following La Roja's involvement in Russia.

The Spanish Football Federation sacked him the following day and Fernando Hierro appointed as his temporary successor.

Conte's next job after leaving the international scene was another challenging one, signing a three-year deal with Premier League side Chelsea.

The Italian set a new club record with 11 consecutive league victories in a single season, and another record for three consecutive Premier League Manager of the Month awards.

Chelsea won the title in his first season with a couple of games to spare and was rewarded with a contract extension.

However, despite winning the FA Cup in his second season, tensions grew behind the scenes and a failure to finish in the top four saw Conte lose his job.

Lopetegui's pretty disastrous senior coaching career continued at Madrid, where he lasted just a couple of months in the 2018-19 season before being given the shove.

Eyebrows were therefore raised when he was appointed by Sevilla last summer, and he was reportedly on the verge of being sacked earlier this season following some bad results.

However, the coronavirus break has proved a turning point for Sevilla and indeed Lopetegui, the club coming back refreshed and looking a far better side since then.

Conte, likewise, has enjoyed relative domestic success in his debut campaign, finishing second in Serie A - a point behind Juventus - and reaching the Coppa Italia semi-finals.

There has undoubtedly been tension behind the scenes, as is often the case when Conte is around, but the Italian is a proven winner and is on course to win another trophy this week.