Welcome to the 2019-20 of the secondary, often quite underappreciated UEFA club competition.

A quick look at last season:

2018-19 Winner: Chelsea FC



Just like in the Champions League, the Europa League ended with an all-English final, actually an all-London derby. It would have made plenty of sense to hold the final in the vicinity of the British capital, but UEFA had awarded the final to Baku, which caused quite a bit of controversy in itself, due to Henrikh Mkhitaryan not being able to play as UEFA couldn't guarantee his personal safety. Good job, UEFA.

Both teams started off by winning their respective groups unbeaten. In the Round of 32, Arsenal faced BATE Borisov, losing the first leg 0-1 but winning 3-0 in return, while Chelsea had little trouble beating Malmö 5-1 on aggregate. In the round of 16, Chelsea beat Dynamo Kiev 3-0 and 5-0, while Arsenal once again struggled in the first leg against Rennes (1-3), but another 3-0 home victory meant they too were in the quarter-final.
There, Chelsea met Slavia Prague, who had surprisingly knocked out EL specialists Sevilla in a 4-3 after ET. Chelsea won the away leg 1-0, and were up 4-1 after 30 minutes. Two quick goals by Slavia were not quite enough to rattle Chelsea, who held on to the 5-3 aggregate score. Arsenal faced their toughest opponent yet, and had surprisingly the least trouble with Napoli, 2-0 and 1-0.
The semifinals were quite interesting as well. Arsenal won a goal-heavy tie against Valencia 7-3 on aggregate, while Chelsea faced Frankfurt, who on their way to the last four had knocked out the three CL drop-outs Donetsk, Inter and Benfica. THe first leg in Frankfurt ended 1-1, and after 120 minutes the score at Stamford Bridge was identical, so a penalty-shootout had to decide the tie - and Azpilicueta missed the second penalty. BUt nerves started kicking in for Frankfurt as well, with Hinteregger and Paciencia missing penalties four and five, with Hazard scoring the decisive kick.

The final itself went scoreless in the first half, with Xhaka and Giroud having chances for each side. Former Arsenal striker Giroud opened the scoring, followed by Pedro and Hazard. Chelsea quickly responded to Iwobi's goal by scoring another, and 4-1 was the final score, with Chelsea lifting the trophy and Arsenal having blown their last chance at CL participation.

Let's move on to this season's proceedings.

2019-20 Season:

The qualifying process is a bit more complicated due to every team eliminated from CL qualifying will drop in at a stage of EL qualifying (or directly to the group stage).


Due to the huge number of matches, screenshotting Wikipedia seems excessive.

Preliminary Round*
14 teams from Luxembourg (ranked 48th) to Kosovo (ranked 55th and last) - First leg on Thursday.

1st qualifying round
The 7 winners are joined by 87(!) teams from all over Europa (Croatia as the highest ranked association entering this round)

Rangers will play the winner the preliminary round tie between Prishtina (KOS) and St. Josephs (GIB), Aberdeen will play RoPS (FIN), while cracking ties like Pyunik vs. Shkupi and Cracovia vs. DAC Dunajská Streda will surely captivate the global football audience.

2nd qualifying round
This is the stage where more higher-ranked clubs will enter, including Roma, who's coefficient will send them to Pot 1 if they manage to qualify. Espanyol and Frankfurt could both go to Tallinn (although plane-sharing will be out of the question, as Espanyol will play at home first). Wolves will have to travel a yet-to-determined distance up North, with Belfast or Torshavn potential destinations.

Roma vs. winner of Debrecen (HUN) / Kukesi (ALB)
Espanyol vs. winner of Stjarnan (ICE) / Levadia (EST)
Frankfurt vs. winner of Radnički Niš (SRB) / Flora (EST)
Wolves vs. winner Crusaders (NIR) / B36 Torshavn (FRO)

Q2 is also the stage where a so-called "Champions" Path starts, with the 19 losers of the first two rounds (PR and Q1) of CL qualifying entering. The loser of match 8 (Celtic / Sarajevo) has received a bye to the 3rd round.

3rd qualifying round
This round will be drawn on July 22nd, with another 15 teams added to the mix in the Main Path and 10 in the Champions Path.

Play-off round
The Main Path will see the remaining 26 winners of Q3 play another round, while the Champions Path will feature 10 Q3 winners plus another six dropping out of CL Q3.
Overall, a total of 21 teams will qualify for the group stage by the play-offs.

-------------------

Group stage
17 teams are already qualified for the group stage, here's a look at some of them:

After getting knocked out in the Round of 16 of the Champions League seven years in a row from 2010-11 to 2016-17, Arsenal have finally found their level in the Europa League, reaching the semi-final in their first attempt in 2017-18 and finishing runner-up to Chelsea last season. Will third time be the charm for Arsenal?

Manchester United go into the Europa League due to having blown everything in the last few weeks of the season. Ole was appointed as interim manager after sacking Mourinho in December, and the honeymoon-sunrunning period peaked in Paris:


Shortly after, Solskjaer signed a three-year contract and, uh, well:



United lost touch to the Top 4, which was impressive as both Chelsea and Spurs also heavily dropped points in the run-in to the end of the season. It will be interesting to see where the focus for this season is set, a run at an international trophy or another potentially futile Top4-chase?

Mönchengladbach and Wolfsburg find themselves in a interesting spot: Both have new managers to start the season, and both of them are coming from Austria, with Gladbach's Rose formerly coaching RB Salzburg and new Wolfsburg coach Oliver Glasner having led LASK Linz to the runner-up spot. Gladbach was 2nd of the table at the start of February, 10 points ahead of fifth, but managed to blow it all in the final weeks of the season, the match against Dortmund ultimately costing them 4th to the great pleasure of Leverkusen. Wolfsburg is just happy to be back in Europe after having to face back-to-back relegation play-offs in 2017 and 2018. They won their final league match 8-1 against Augsburg and overtook Frankfurt to finish 6th overall.

Both Lazio and Milan are kinda EL regulars these days, with Lazio having lost to Sevilla in the Round of 32 last season, while Milan didn't even make it out of the groups. Lazio won the Coppa Italia final against Atalanta to book their place in the group stage (in the league, they only finished 8th). Milan was looking to qualify for the CL for the first time in five years, but ultimately fell a point short of Atalanta and Inter, finishing 5th overall.

Getafe was the surprise team of the 2018-19 La Liga season, and only ended up fifth due to a bad last 5 games, where they only scored 5 points compared to Valencia's 9. It will be their second EL participation after 2010-11. Sevilla, well, they won this thing three times from 2014 to 2016, and are looking to go for another title.

Belgian cup winner KV Mechelen might give their European comeback after a 25 year absence. After getting relegated from the first league in Belgium last season, they also theoretically achieved promotion back to the top-tier. But currently they are facing a ban for match-fixing which includes forced relegation and a ban from Europa, which they have appealed. Fun fact: They are the last Belgian team to win a European club competition, with the Cup Winners' Cup in 1988 (beating Ajax 1-0 in the final) and the subsequent Super Cup (beating PSV).

Seeding for the group stage

Sevilla, Arsenal, Manchester United, Beşiktaş, Sporting CP and CSKA Moscow are set for pot 1 due to their high coefficients. All others are currently still TBD.

Der Markt:

Besides the obvious "Random CL participant", market has EPL#1, but the Italian and Spanish clubs are not far behind.



Who's gonna win it?

In for Chelsea to win again after finishing 3rd in CL group stage

think some italian team will take it down. Just posting to subscribe

Poll misses a who cares about who wins the LÖLropa league option.

Also, for reasons mentioned above, I obviously didn't read OP, but how does FC not have a custom undertitle yet, Zaid? Clearly deserves one.

Please remove Milan from the poll

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-a8420066.html

So that's what I get for being early with my threads

Roma therefore moves up to the group stage, while Torino gets Roma's original spot in Q2.

+ holy ****ing autoplay non-stoppable aids

Noscript GÖAT ÖAT.

(google it)

Aberdeen's programme tonight was elite

In4Wolves

Bump for Hajduk Split dropping a three-goal advantage to ****ing Gzira United from Malta and getting knocked out on away goals

Aaand Kilmarnock have been dumped out by a Welsh club called Connah's Quay Nomads Football Club, Nomads probably being a euphemism for sheep shaggers.

Im in for United cause im stubborn, stupid and would like to harness the power of positive thinking.
So yeah will probably be Wolves.

Holy **** there were a lot of Europa League Qualifiers today

3rd round qualifying draw

Champions Path

Red marks losers of that particular tie (CL qualifying rounds)

Sutjeska (MNE) / APOEL (CYP) v HB Tórshavn (FRO) / Linfield (NIR)
CFR Cluj (ROU) / Maccabi Tel-Aviv (ISR) v SP Tre Penne (SMR) / Sūduva (LTU)
Ararat-Armenia (ARM) / Lincoln Red Imps (GIB) v Saburtalo (GEO) / GNK Dinamo (CRO)
Piast Gliwice (POL) / Riga FC (LVA) v Crvena zvezda (SRB) / HJK Helsinki (FIN)
Valur Reykjavík (ISL) / Ludogorets (BUL) v The New Saints (WAL) / København (DEN)
Sarajevo (BIH)* v BATE Borisov (BLR) / Rosenborg (NOR)
Shkëndija (MKD) / Dudelange (LUX) v Celtic (SCO) / Nõmme Kalju (EST)
FC Santa Coloma (AND) / Astana (KAZ) v Ferencváros (HUN) / Valletta (MLT)
Partizani (ALB) / Sheriff Tiraspol (MDA) v Maribor (SVN) / AIK (SWE)
Slovan Bratislava (SVK) / Feronikeli (KOS) v Dundalk (IRL) / Qarabağ (AZE)

Main Path

Norrköping (SWE) / Liepaja (LVA) v Hapoel Beer-Sheva (ISR) / Kairat Almaty (KAZ)
Torino (ITA) / Debrecen (HUN) v Shakhtyor Soligorsk (BLR) / Esbjerg (DEN)
Royal Antwerp (BEL) v Viktoria Plzeň (CZE) / Olympiacos (GRE)
Austria Wien (AUT) v Shamrock Rovers (IRL) / Apollon Limassol (CYP)
Feyenoord (NED) v Gabala (AZE) / Dinamo Tbilisi (GEO)
Lechia Gdańsk (POL) / Brøndby (DEN) v Braga (POR)
Molde (NOR) / Čukarički (SRB) v Aris Thessaloniki (GRE) / AEL Limassol (CYP)
Lokomotiv Plovdiv 1926 (BUL) / Spartak Trnava (SVK) v Strasbourg (FRA) / Maccabi Haifa (ISR)
Thun (SUI) v Spartak Moskva (RUS)
Alashkert (ARM) / FCSB (ROU) v Mladá Boleslav (CZE) / Ordabasy Shymkent (KAZ)
Pyunik (ARM) / Jablonec (CZE) v Wolverhampton Wanderers (ENG) / Crusaders (NIR)
Midtjylland (DEN) v Rangers (SCO) / Progrès Niederkorn (LUX)
Mariupol (UKR) v AZ Alkmaar (NED) / Häcken (SWE)
AEK Larnaca (CYP) / Levski Sofia (BUL) v Gent (BEL) / Viitorul (ROU)
Legia Warszawa (POL) / KuPS (FIN) v Dunajská Streda (SVK) / Atromitos (GRE)
Haugesund (NOR) / Sturm Graz (AUT) v PSV (NED) / Basel (SUI)
Rijeka (CRO) v Chikhura Sachkhere (GEO) / Aberdeen (SCO)
Ventspils (LVA) / Gzira United (MLT) v Jeunesse Esch (LUX) / Vitória SC (POR)
Fehérvár (HUN) / Vaduz (LIE) v Flora Tallinn (EST) / Eintracht Frankfurt (GER)
Connah's Quay Nomads (WAL) / Partizan (SRB) v Malatyaspor (TUR) / Olimpija Ljubljana (SVN)
Domžale (SVN) / Malmö (SWE) v Utrecht (NED) / Zrinjski (BIH)
CSKA Sofia (BUL) / Osijek (CRO) v Buducnost Podgorića (MNE) / Zorya Luhansk (UKR)
Arsenal Tula (RUS) / Neftçi (AZE) v Bnei Yehuda Tel-Aviv (ISR)
Luzern (SUI) / KÍ (FRO) v Espanyol (ESP) / Stjarnan (ISL)
Sparta Praha (CZE) v Trabzonspor (TUR)
Budapest Honvéd (HUN) / Universitatea Craiova (ROU) v AEK Athens (GRE)

BREAKING: Arsenal has been eliminated.



Osijek vs. CSKA Sofia is in extra time, can't be bothered to wait for that:

3rd round matches:

Champions Path

Sutjeska (MNE) v Linfield (NIR)
Maccabi Tel-Aviv (ISR) v Sūduva (LTU)
Ararat-Armenia (ARM) v Saburtalo (GEO)
Riga FC (LVA) v HJK Helsinki (FIN)
Ludogorets (BUL) v The New Saints (WAL)
Sarajevo (BIH) v BATE Borisov (BLR)
Dudelange (LUX) v Nõmme Kalju (EST)
Astana (KAZ) v Valletta (MLT)
Sheriff Tiraspol (MDA) v AIK (SWE)
Slovan Bratislava (SVK) v Dundalk (IRL)

Main Path

Norrköping (SWE) v Hapoel Beer-Sheva (ISR)
Torino (ITA) v Shakhtyor Soligorsk (BLR)
Royal Antwerp (BEL) v Viktoria Plzeň (CZE)
Austria Wien (AUT) v Apollon Limassol (CYP)
Feyenoord (NED) v Dinamo Tbilisi (GEO)
Brøndby (DEN) v Braga (POR)
Molde (NOR) v Aris Thessaloniki (GRE)
Lokomotiv Plovdiv 1926 (BUL) v Strasbourg (FRA)
Thun (SUI) v Spartak Moskva (RUS)
FCSB (ROU) v Mladá Boleslav (CZE)
Pyunik (ARM) v Wolverhampton Wanderers (ENG)
Midtjylland (DEN) v Rangers (SCO)
Mariupol (UKR) v AZ Alkmaar (NED)
AEK Larnaca (CYP) v Gent (BEL)
Legia Warszawa (POL) v Atromitos (GRE)
Haugesund (NOR) v PSV (NED)
Rijeka (CRO) v Aberdeen (SCO)
Ventspils (LVA) v Vitória SC (POR)
Vaduz (LIE) v Eintracht Frankfurt (GER)
Partizan (SRB) v Malatyaspor (TUR)
Malmö (SWE) v Zrinjski (BIH)
CSKA Sofia (BUL) / Osijek (CRO) v Zorya Luhansk (UKR)
Neftçi (AZE) v Bnei Yehuda Tel-Aviv (ISR)
Luzern (SUI) v Espanyol (ESP)
Sparta Praha (CZE) v Trabzonspor (TUR)
Universitatea Craiova (ROU) v AEK Athens (GRE)

FYI, the projected pots (assuming the highest ranked 13 teams make it through the Main path, the 3rd-8th best team drop from the CL league path, yada yada spreadsheet nerd etc.:

How is a team who is currently in CL qualification, played in the CL group stages last year, and beat the eventual European champions in said group stage a pot 4 EL team? (Red Star)

(In case this was not only a rhetorical question)

Why are they only Pot 4?

The coefficient that determines the pots is based on European matches played in the last 5 seasons. And while Red Star had solid 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons with 7 and 8 points, the previous three were insignificant:

	14/15	15/16	16/17	17/18	18/19	Total
Red Star	-	0.25	1.5	8.0	7.0	16.75

(Full ranking here: https://www.uefa.com/memberassociati...club/#/yr/2019)
How the points are calculated: https://www.uefa.com/memberassociati...gs/club/about/

Why are projected to play in the EL?

My spreadsheet assumes that

• The four highest-ranked, non-eliminated teams in the Champions Path (this one is technically shared between CL/EL) qualify for the CL Group Stage (currently that is Ajax, Celtic, Copenhagen, Zagreb)
• The teams ranked 5-16 either lose the CL play-off or qualify by winning one of the 8 EL Champions Path play-off ties. Red Star is currently ranked 14th among the teams that are still eligible for qualification, so it's assumed they will qualify for the EL group stage this way.
• In the League Path, you have a similar assumption with Porto/Kiev projected for CL and Basel/Olympiacos/Brugge/Krasnodar/Basaksehir/Linz projected for EL. (These are all teams that are currently still running for CL qualification)
• In the Main Path it's assumed that the 13 highest-ranked teams qualify for the group stage by winning the play-off round (everyone from PSV down to Wolverhampton, but i.e. not Torino)

So while Red Star is currently projected in Pot 4, it's pretty likely they will end up in Pot 3 if there are multiple lower-ranked teams that qualify for EL. Cluj from Romania for example only have a coefficient of 3.500.

Spreadsheet for anyone interested.

lolfc prob thought some geriatric white dudes picked the teams going to the EL dance based on strength of schedule

This post is pretty good after Checkraise essentially just explained why they'll likely be in pot 3

One of these 4 teams will be in the group stage: Ararat, Saburtalo, Dudelange, Kalju Nomme. You're welcome to guess which countries they represent.

Dudelange from Luxembourg is fairly well known because they knocked LolSalzburg out of CL qualifying a few years ago.

Without looking it up my guess for the other 3 would be Kazakhstan, Cyprus and Armenia

:shrug

Any interest in a IKTS for the Europa League? (Group stages onwards)

I'll be running a Champions League one, don't mind running a Europa League one as well if there is enough interest

I'd prob do both if theres interest. Are you signed up and paid for EPL IKTS?

Yeah i'm in the EPL one

I'll make the threads after the group stage draws have been made, will make them both free to play with the option of a sidebet that might get more people in