Here we are, the end of the long and painful European qualifying rounds. By the close of play on Thursday we will know all the competitors in the 3 European Tournaments.
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
POTS CONFIRMED!!!
The draw for the League Stage is on Thursday at 5pm.
Pot 1
Real Madrid, Man City, Bayern, PSG, Liverpool, Inter, Dortmund, Leipzig, Barcelona
Pot 2
Leverkusen, Atletico, Atalanta, Juventus, Benfica, Arsenal, Brugge, Donetsk, Milan
Pot 3
Feyenoord, Sporting, PSV, Celtic, Red Bull Salzburg, Young Boys, Dinamo Zagreb, Crvena Zvezda, Lille
Pot 4
Monaco, Aston Villa, Bologna, Girona, Stuttgart, Sturm Graz, Brest, Sparta Prague, Slovan Bratislava
Each team will be drawn against 2 from each pot, playing one home and one away. As such it doesn't really matter what pot you are in. As usual, you cannot play a team from your own country. However, you can be drawn against 2 teams from the same nation.
EUROPA LEAGUE
All games played Thursday including:
Anderlecht (1-0) Dinamo Minsk
Ajax (4-1) Jagiellonia Bialystok
Besiktas (3-3) Lugano
Steaua Bucherest (1-1) LASK
Shamrock Rovers (0-4) PAOK
Radid Vienna (1-2) Brage
Hearts (0-1) Viktoria Plzen
The draw for the league stage in on Friday at 12pm. Same rules apply as in the CL.
Pot 1 includes Manchester United, Spurs, Rangers, Roma, Porto, Lazio and Eintracht Frankfurt.
CONFERENCE LEAGUE
The majority of games are on Thursday with a couple on Wednesday and include:
Servette (0-2) Chelsea
Kilmarnock (0-2) Copenhagen
Larne (1-2) Lincoln Red Imps
The New Saints (3-0) Panevezys
Istanbul Basaksehir (0-0) St Patrick's Athletic
Panathinaikos (1-2) Lens
Trabzonspor (0-0) St Gallen
Gent (1-0) Partizan
Real Betis (2-0) Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih
The draw for the league stage is on Friday at 1:30pm, same rules as CL.
The draws will be interesting and should make the format clearer to those in doubt about how it all works.
The Champions League starts 17th-19th September, with the Europa following the next week and the Conference a week after that. The CL league stage ends on 29th January when all games are played simultaneously. EL ends the next day and Conference on the 31st.
European Play-Offs
posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago
5 stars
posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago
huh the pots dont go by league position now? back to coefficient?
posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago
Yes, the CL holders are pot 1, then all others are done by coefficients.
posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago
So UCL & Europa start on different weeks....do they continue like this or will 'European weeks' include all 3 cups as before?
Interestingly (to me at least) if you progress through the Europa League (1st - 4th) then you do not play any greater number of games than the Europa League in years gone by, as it always included an additional ko round (Round of 32) compared to the UCL.
The UCL gets another 2 games in the group stage (8) and potentially another 2 if you end 5th - 12th in the league.
I assume winning the Europa still gets you to the UCL, and conference to the Europa, as before?
Also do the top 2 performing leagues in Europe this season get an additional UCL place next season?
So many questions
posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago
No, just the first weeks are "exclusive". Then it goes back to CL on Tuesday and Wednesday. Not sure if all Europa/Conference are just Thursdays. The other difference is the last games are all played on same day - ie all CL on Tuesday, Europa Wednesday, Conference Thursday.
Yes, Europa winners get CL, Conference winners Europa.
Yes, the top 2 performing leagues get the extra place.
posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago
thank you font of knowledge
posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago
TNS are as good as through
posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago
Would be one of the greatest comebacks if they fack it up. First Welsh team to get to the group/league stage since it stopped being straight KO?
posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago
CL pots confirmed.