• The forums will be unavailable for a few hours on Saturday 6th June, when they do return they will initially be in a degraded state with some features missing, but normal posting/reading will be possible. The main website will not be affected by these updates.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.
    Some other features of the forum are also currently disabled.

How the Europa League works

Luna17 said:
Do any teams playing in CL qualifying rounds drop in to EL when they get knocked out ? I think there's three qualifying rounds then a play off before group stage ????
Click to expand...
Just basing it off this for the season just ended:

You must be logged on to see external links

Then yes it sounds like 11 teams that lose certain Champions League qualifying rounds will join the Europa League.

"A total of 53 teams competed in the qualifying system, which included the qualifying phase and the play-off round. The 12 winners of the play-off round advanced to the
You must be logged on to see external links
, to join the 13 teams that entered in the league stage, along with the seven losers of the
You must be logged on to see external links
(five from the and two from the ), and the four losers of the (League Path)."
Gloucester said:
League Phase - 8
Round of 16 - 2
Qrt Final - 2
Semi Final - 2
Final - 1

15 games if we reach final. More likely 17 games because we should not even be aiming for top 8. Take the extra knock out round and rest our top players as much as possible in the league phase. A point a game will likely qualify for the knockout stage.
Click to expand...
See how we go, if we get a great start then we definitely wanna try and go for top 8. Obviously I say this as someone who will be buzzing to get through the group.
 
Last edited:

Onslow said:
  • 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:
Click to expand...
On top of this @Vore

It's 2 teams from each pot and so irrelevant whether your pot 1 or pot 4.

Pots are just based on club-coefficient which is only relevant if get into Europe ever season as you make more money the higher your co-efficient is. Co-efficient is based on a 5 year period.

If you finish 9th-16th you get a home leg second in the play-offs.

9th or 10th play 23rd or 24th and visa versa
11th or 12th play 21st or 22nd
13th or 14th play 19th or 20th
15th or 16th play 17th or 18th

The higher you finish the more money you make so getting in the top 8 is worth more money and less games to play as straight into last 16.

The more games you win the more money you make in general and you can more club co-efficent points which again only relevant if we keep getting back into europe within a 5 year period.
 
Last edited:
ErichZann said:
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.
Click to expand...
IMG_5334.gif
 

Attachments

You must be logged on to see attachments
Stuie27 said:
The plus is that even if we go all the way to the final we only play 11 games. With a big enough squad we should be able to handle that.
Click to expand...
That's not true

We'd have to play either 14 or 16 to reach the final. It's 12-14 in the Conference League too so not sure where you've pulled 11 from.

I'd be buzzing if we get to play more than 8. Be gutting to not make the top 24 like!!!
 
anth said:
4 pots based on UEFA rankings. You play 2 teams from each pot, 1 home and 1 away. You can't play any team from your own country. We will likely be pot 3, AC Milan pot 1. There are 9 teams in each pot, so we have a 1 in 9 chance of being drawn away against AC Milan. (I think that's right anyway)
Click to expand...
So does it not really matter which pot you’re in? If you’re playing 2 teams from each pot anyways?
 
mackembhoy said:
That's not true

We'd have to play either 14 or 16 to reach the final. It's 12-14 in the Conference League too so not sure where you've pulled 11 from.

I'd be buzzing if we get to play more than 8. Be gutting to not make the top 24 like!!!
Click to expand...
Top 8 is what to aim for.

Avoid the play offs for the last 16.
 
SAFC Wilks said:
So does it not really matter which pot you’re in? If you’re playing 2 teams from each pot anyways?
Click to expand...
I don't think so. Just means the games are split evenly as per the coefficients.

How they work that hower out however is an entirely different matter. :lol:

We apparently haven't got one. Neither have Bournemouth.

Villa were pot 1 this season, and Forest pot 3.

AI Overview
Sunderland AFC does not currently have an active UEFA club coefficient as the club has not participated in European competition in the last five years. By UEFA rules, clubs without a recent European record are instead assigned 20% of their national association's coefficient, which puts their baseline at roughly 20% of the Premier League's score
 
Last edited:
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.
Click to expand...
Not for us at this point. They changed the pot system to have more games against top teams. As a way to combat the Europe super league.

Purely a money related thing to be in a higher pot as your club co-efficent gives you more money from the TV deal.

We have to share our pot with Bournemouth and potentially Crystal Palace. Palace if they qualify will make more money than us and Bournemouth due to higher club co-efficient before the performance in the EL is taken into account.

If we keep getting into Europe then higher the pot if ahead of any other English teams in the same comp we'd make more money.
 
Last edited:
Onslow said:
  • 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:
Click to expand...
I don’t think the games are over 2 legs- we play 4 teams away and a separate 4 teams at home. Teams from same country are kept apart (so we won’t play Bournemouths and potentially Crystal Palace).

The rest is spot on, I think..
 
Stuie27 said:
The plus is that even if we go all the way to the final we only play 11 games. With a big enough squad we should be able to handle that.
Click to expand...
The knock out phases are all two legs. If you have to go via the playoffs, it's anything up to
chriswallace85 said:
I don't think so. Just means the games are split evenly as per the coefficients.

How they work that hower out however is an entirely different matter. :lol:

We apparently haven't got one. Neither have Bournemouth.

Villa were pot 1 this season, and Forest pot 3.

AI Overview
Sunderland AFC does not currently have an active UEFA club coefficient as the club has not participated in European competition in the last five years. By UEFA rules, clubs without a recent European record are instead assigned 20% of their national association's coefficient, which puts their baseline at roughly 20% of the Premier League's score
Click to expand...
We've been allocated a fifth of FA coefficient, which puts us in pot 3 at the moment. Where we sit finally will depend on who gets through the qualifiers
Stuie27 said:
The plus is that even if we go all the way to the final we only play 11 games. With a big enough squad we should be able to handle that.
Click to expand...
The knock out phases are all two legs. If you have to go via the playoffs, it's anything up to
chriswallace85 said:
I don't think so. Just means the games are split evenly as per the coefficients.

How they work that hower out however is an entirely different matter. :lol:

We apparently haven't got one. Neither have Bournemouth.

Villa were pot 1 this season, and Forest pot 3.

AI Overview
Sunderland AFC does not currently have an active UEFA club coefficient as the club has not participated in European competition in the last five years. By UEFA rules, clubs without a recent European record are instead assigned 20% of their national association's coefficient, which puts their baseline at roughly 20% of the Premier League's score
Click to expand...
We've been allocated a fifth of FA coefficient, which puts us in pot 3 at the moment. Where we sit finally will depend on who gets through the qualifiers
 
Onslow said:
  • 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:
Click to expand...
Sorry I think I have misunderstood what you meant 🤦🏻‍♂️yes, later knockout stages are over 2 legs 👍
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top