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How the Europa League works

ClassicDom

ClassicDom

Winger
Just because it confused the shit out of me yesterday :lol:

We’ve qualified for the League phase (as I understand it).

That means we go straight into the 36 team League along with the other 35 teams who either automatically qualified or who came through the qualifying playoff.

The League phase consists of 4 home and 4 away games for every club in it.

There are 4 pots of teams and we will be drawn against 2 teams from each pot which make up our 8 games.

We can’t be drawn against another English side in the league phase but we can in the knockout phase if we get there.

After 8 games the top 8 in the League go straight to the knockout phase.

Teams from 9th to 24th then go into a two legged playoff to determine the other 8 teams to go to the knockout phase.

Teams finishing 9th to 16th are “seeded” which means they get home advantage in the second leg of their playoff.

Teams finishing 25th to 36th are out of all European football for the season.

Once that’s done, it’s then a straight two legged knockout event until the final.

So we’re guaranteed at least 8 European games next season.

Last season Brann made the playoffs in 24th place on 9 points.

Roma finished 8th on 16 points as a guide.
 

BoshItLikeBardo said:
Well this is exciting. League phase draw was made on 29th August this season. That’ll be something new to look forward to.
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Just be thankful we made the league phase. The playoff phase is utterly incomprehensible. :lol:
@Pancho or any other mod could I be a bit cheeky and have this stickied? I’ve seen a fair few posters asking how the Europa league works is all. Cheers.
 
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I've tried to look this up but it seems complicated so figured I'd just ask you boffins.

As far as I understand it, we skip qualifiers and are straight into the Europa League propper.

It is one big league, or a bunch of groups?
How big are the groups/how many teams do we play?
How many times do we play them?
How well do we have to do to progress to the knockouts?
How many knockout rounds are there to get to the final?
Are the knockouts one or two-legged?

Thank you kindly.
 
  • We play 8 teams from different 'pots'
  • 4 home and 4 away, in a league of 36 (?) teams
  • We qualify by finishing in the top 8, but between 9th and 24th, we can still qualify via a play-off
  • 3/4 knockout rounds (?)
  • Two legs Shirley
I don't know if any of the above is faulty, but it's all from what I think I've learnt from watching previous draws.

Conversely, I've never had much of an interest in CL/UEL group stages, up until the SF/Final stages I struggle to be interested. Until now. :cool:
 
The setup is a league, 36 teams (12 are known so far). But you only play 8 teams, 2 from each pot, 4 home, 4 away. The top 8 go straight to the last 16, then 9-24 play each other in a playoff round, to make up the other 8 teams in the last 16. From there it's a straight 2 legged knockout competition until the Final in Frankfurt.
 
Is there actually any benefit to being in a higher pot if everyone will just play 2 teams from each of the 4 pots? Can understand when they are drawing groups but for this format it seems a bit pointless.
 
From looking at the league table from this past season, 16 points from 8 games got you to the knockouts automatically, 9 points got you into the knockout play off matches.
 
SuperSub said:
Is there actually any benefit to being in a higher pot if everyone will just play 2 teams from each of the 4 pots? Can understand when they are drawing groups but for this format it seems a bit pointless.
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It's to ensure that each teams' 8 matches are of similar quality to make the overall league more even

But no I suppose not, in and of yourself it doesn't really matter
 
Sunderland will play in Europe for the first time in 53 years next season. The Europa League isn’t a prospect many were expecting, even at the start of last week and especially not at the start of the season. The competition itself is not that complicated once you know how it all works, although UEFA have done their best to make it much more confusing (albeit with a trade-off of making it a lot more interesting to watch, I’d argue). We are no experts, having never been in this position before, but here's everything we know about the competition so far. There are a few things you might want to know before we play our first match in September...

WHEN ARE THE GAMES?
Unlike a lot of domestic competitions, we already know exactly when each one of our eight league stage matches will be, aside from the opening game which can be on one of two dates.

MATCHDAY 1: 16/17 SEPTEMBER
MATCHDAY 2: 15 OCTOBER
MATCHDAY 3: 22 OCTOBER
MATCHDAY 4: 5 NOVEMBER
MATCHDAY 5: 26 NOVEMBER
MATCHDAY 6: 10 DECEMBER
MATCHDAY 7: 21 JANUARY
MATCHAY 8: 28 JANUARY

WHEN DO WE FIND OUT WHO WE PLAY?
This is the biggest thing to look forward to as well as the most important logistically if you’re actually planning on travelling to any of our four away matches. The draw date is 28th August, one day after the play-off round confirms the final teams to qualify for the Europa League. At the moment, beyond speculation and a million permutations, we have no idea who we will get. The only exception is we can’t draw English teams in the league stage, so no Bournemouth or, possibly, Crystal Palace.

HOW DOES THE DRAW WORK?
The 36 teams will be divided into four pots of nine, based on their coefficients in Europe. You then draw two teams from each pot, including your own. As mentioned, you can’t get teams from your own country and you also can’t get a team from the same country more than twice. So we could get Real Sociedad and Celta Vigo for instance but we couldn’t then get Rayo Vallecano (if they qualify by beating Palace in the final of the Conference League), or a combination thereof.

After our eight opponents are pencilled in, we then learn which ones we are playing at home or away. You cannot draw a team at home and away, there are no return legs in the league stage. For example, if we draw Marseille we’ll either play them at the Stadium of Light or in France, not both. UEFA’s algorithm tries to factor in logistics and a fair balance of home and away fixtures. Long story short though, we play four home matches and four away matches.

WHAT POT WILL WE BE IN?
Pot 3 or 4 most likely.

WHAT WILL THE ALLOCATIONS BE LIKE?
Unfortunately, UEFA rules mandate clubs only have to give 5% of their stadium to away supporters. However, it is worth noting that a club must have a stadium of at least 8,000 capacity to play at their own ground in the Europa League, or they have to play somewhere else. That means the minimum allocation will be no less than 400 no matter what. We’ll have to give away teams an allocation of somewhere between 2,300 and 2,450, depending on if they use the workable capacity of the stadium or the paper capacity of 49,000.

HOW DO THE KNOCKOUT STAGES WORK?
Not to get too far ahead, so I’ll keep this brief. The top eight after the league stage advance straight to the round of 16. Teams ranked ninth to 24th will play in a knockout play-off to join them. Ninth to 16th are seeded in the draw, which means they get to play the second leg of the tie, against the teams 17th to 24th, at home. All knockout ties are over two legs, except the final which is just a single game at a neutral venue. The Waldstadion in Frankfurt will host the final.

“In the draw for the round of 16, the eight teams finishing the league phase in positions 1–8 are seeded, and the eight winners of the knockout phase play-offs are unseeded. In the quarter finals and semi finals, both the exact match pairings and order of legs are predetermined based on the tournament bracket. The teams with the better league phase ranking play the second leg of each round at home if they continue advancing. Should a seeded team be beaten, the team that eliminated them takes over their seeding position. The winner of semi final 1 is designated as the "home" team for the final.”- from Wikipedia (don’t shoot the messenger).

The dates for the knockout stages (if you dare to think about them) are as follows:

KNOCKOUT ROUND PLAY-OFFS (DRAW ON 29TH JANUARY):
FEBRUARY 18 AND 25

ROUND OF 16 (DRAW ON 26TH FEBRUARY, ALONGSIDE DRAW FOR REMAINING ROUNDS):
MARCH 11 AND 18

QUARTER FINAL:
APRIL 8 AND 15

SEMI FINAL:
APRIL 29 AND MAY 6

FINAL:
MAY 26

ANYTHING ELSE?
Yes, Russian clubs remain banned and Belarusian clubs aren’t banned but aren’t allowed to play in Belarus. Due to ongoing conflicts, Ukrainian and Israeli teams cannot play in their respective countries, so their ‘home’ games are played elsewhere. It is also worth clarifying that Champions League teams cannot drop down into the Europa League, except in the qualifiers. Similarly, Europa League teams can only drop into the UEFA Conference League if they're knocked out in the qualifiers. We don't have to play any qualifiers, therefore the Conference League is not possible for us. Finally, the orders and pairs for the round of 16 are pre-determined.
 
Vore said:
I've tried to look this up but it seems complicated so figured I'd just ask you boffins.

As far as I understand it, we skip qualifiers and are straight into the Europa League propper.

It is one big league, or a bunch of groups?
How big are the groups/how many teams do we play?
How many times do we play them?
How well do we have to do to progress to the knockouts?
How many knockout rounds are there to get to the final?
Are the knockouts one or two-legged?

Thank you kindly.
Click to expand...

Part of the confusion is the rules keep changing ...
 
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