Welcome to the 2016-2017 edition of the UEFA Sevilla Europa League, the unwanted step-brother of the UEFA Champions League. We will take a look back on last season's results first.

Winner: FC Sevilla


(I was tempted to use last year's photo here)

After winning the Europa League in 2013-14 and 2014-15, most fans were hopeful that Sevilla couldn't do a three-peat, mainly because by winning the competition in 2014-15 they qualified for the Champions League Group stage. Unfortunately, they finished third in the Group of Death with Juve, City and Gladbach and went into the Round of 32 draw as an unseeded team, luckboxing Molde. In the Round of 16, they met Basel - who were hoping to reach the final in their home stadium St. Jakob-Park - and crushed those hopes.

At this point, the bookie favourite was still Dortmund, but they threw away a 3-1 away lead at Anfield to crash out against Liverpool, while Sevilla beat Bilbao on penalties. The two teams met in the final after beating Donetsk and Villarreal, and - of course - Sevilla won and celebrated their third title in a row. Let's just hope they don't finish third in their CL group this time around.
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Now, let's look at some numbers and teams for this year: a total of 188 teams will be involved in the tournament. Most of them will have a long way to the group stage:

1st qualifying round (96 teams), already over. "Notable" knock-outs: Linfield, Shamrock Rovers, Pyunik (lost to FC Europa from Gibraltar).

2nd qualifying round (48 winners + 18 teams) - 14th/21st of July, notable matches include: Dinamo Minsk - St. Patrick's Athletic, Birkirkara - Hearts, Maribor - Levski Sofia, Aberdeen - Ventspils and Midtjylland-Vaduz.

3rd qualifying round (33 winners + 25 teams) - draw 15th of July, matches on the 28th of July + 4th of August: Entering this round are teams like West Ham, Hertha BSC, Lille, Sassuolo, Krasnodar, Gent, Panathinaikos, Rapid Vienna and others.

Play-off round (29 winners + 15 CL Q3 drop-outs) - draw 5th, matches 18th/25th of August. The 22 winners enter the group stage, together with 10 CL play-off losers and 16 already qualified teams.

Group stage draw: 26th of August.

Qualified: Athletic Bilbao, Celta Vigo, Manchester United, Southampton, Schalke 04, Mainz 05, Inter, Fiorentina, Braga, Nice, Zenit, Zorya Luhansk (UKR), Feyenoord, Standard Liege, FC Zürich, Konyaspor (TUR).

Taking a look at the already qualified teams, obviously Man United stands out. Zlatan has never won the Champions League, but hasn't won the Europa League either. With Mourinho now in charge at Old Trafford, is there potential for a international title this season? The competition is strong as well, and you're never safe as long as Sevilla is technically in the tournament.

What does DER MARKT have to say about the competition?



Oddly enough, there are no odds on Sevilla yet. Wonder what bookies would give on that right now, 50/1? Seems like free money. Anyway, go go go!

First, looking forward to us giving the Maltese cup winners a real scare in qualifying.

In I guess. Will be interesting to see just how seriously Mourinho will take EL this season. I'm thinking not very seriously. Hope we go for it though.

In

Schalke free money obv

in for mou complaining that chelsea being out of europe gives them an unfair advantage in the league

lol wouldn't put it past the shameless **** actually

Meh, I can see Jose settling down a bit this year.

No way the club stands for his bs with Bobby still there.

My pick is Leicester

jose has disgraced himself beyond redemption in both his most recent jobs. some ancient bloke sitting in the stands looking on disapprovingly will not make a jot of difference when jose feels the need to set fire to the linesman's flag or w/e

Didn't he already fire a cheeky shot at Wenger in his first press conference?

Exactly.

I think you're dreaming here KW. I can see him doing and saying all the right things at first, being on his best behaviour, trying to play positive football and giving Rashford/Adnan/Pereira/TFM/CBJ some meaningful sub minutes and maybe even 1-2 starts. The fixture list even makes this easier for him. But soon enough he'll revert to type, on and off the pitch.

Maybe it will be sooner than you think with Chelsea (a) on October 22, three days after a trip to FC Kairat in Kazakhstan (hopefully).

I was looking at City on sept 10 actually but yeah, if it doesn't happen then it'll definitely happen in october where we play plop/chelsea + assorted eastern european plumbers.

The draw is later today, although I shan't be paying much attention as I'm thinking of ways to spend the money I will win when we ship this thing next Spring.

Our potential opponents seem to offer a lot of opportunities for a punch-up. I say appear, as I haven't heard of most of them, but that generally means that they're swarthy Eastern European types, and they normally seem keen. I've been to watch Grasshoppers before and their readyness for a scrap surprised me. Reykjavik and Gothenburg seem to be the outliers.

I insist that should we draw Videoton (who were meant to be boss when I was a kid, I'd imagine they had a fancy warm-up routine that nobody had ever seen before and a skillful number 10 that it was best to kick the **** out of) I insist that MindFkr puts in an appearance in London. Peach shorts are optional.

Observation: since we are seeded, either the tournament is **** or the seeding system is ****, or both.

Zero chance KR is in the draw. They're near the relegation spots in Iceland, a source of great schadenfreude to all Icelanders (apart from their **** supporters obv).

They drew the first leg 3-3, they're still in with a shout. Gothenburg look all but through after winning 3-0 away from home.

ifk göteborg have a bunch of guys ready to fight, throw plastic chairs and dress in matching black outfits. the swedes are pretty serious about their football violence.

went looking for hibernia's league position yesterday and found out they won the cup last year while being in the second division. that's great. looked like they had a lot fans there for a game in toto cup rounds of the tournament too.

In.

We will be soon

Arse end of eastern europe it is for hoopie

And Hertha probably gets Brondby, lol rigged.

And why do they put the teams in groups before the draw?

Just buy two bigger bowls and put the seeded teams in one and the unseeded in another, ffs.

Pissflaps.

Brøndby came extremely close to knocking them out a few years ago, but this will be a walkover for Hertha if Brøndby even make it that far.

In for Southampton-related thursday night glory (pretty sure this is a quote from me last year and that did not end well).