See the latest Europa League draw article.
From next season, the UEFA Cup will be known as the UEFA Europa League (previous discussion on name change).
Apart from the name change, the event has been overhauled and will now feature 12 groups of four teams, with each team playing the other three sides and the two top competitors moving on. Title holders and ten clubs removed from the UEFA Champions League play-off round will take part in the group stage.
To qualify for the UEFA Europa League group stage, four preliminary rounds will take place.
2009/10 UEFA Europa League match calendar:
First qualifying round, 1st leg – 02.07.2009
First qualifying round, 2nd leg – 09.07.2009
Second qualifying round, 1st leg – 16.07.2009
Second qualifying round, 2nd leg – 23.07.2009
Third qualifying round, 1st leg – 30.07.2009
Third qualifying round, 2nd leg – 06.08.2009
Play-off round, 1st leg – 20.08.2009
Play-off round, 2nd leg – 27.08.2009
Group stage, Matchday 1 – 17.09.2009
Group stage, Matchday 2 – 01.10.2009
Group stage, Matchday 3 – 22.10.2009
Group stage, Matchday 4 – 05.11.2009
Group stage, Matchday 5 – 02/03.12.2009
Group stage, Matchday 6 – 16/17.12.2009
Round of 32, first leg – 18.02.2010
Round of 32, second leg – 25.02.2010
Round of 16, first leg – 11.03.2010
Round of 16, second leg – 18.03.2010
Quarter-finals, first leg – 01.04.2010
Quarter-finals, second leg – 08.04.2010
Semi-finals, first leg – 22.04.2010
Semi-finals, second leg – 29.04.2010
Final (Arena Hamburg, Germany) – 12.05.2010
So you have to play 15 games (minimum) to win the competition! That’s 2 more than the CL and a heavy burden!
BD – agreed, I don’t see the point of the round of 32 keeping in mind that these teams are usually going to have a mid-table battle in their domestic leagues as well.
Dropping that and promoting just the winners to the round of 16 (or converting round of 32 into a play-off round for champions league exiting teams to determine which 4 teams will join the 12 group winners) would be less of a burden.
What is the number of teams to qualify for the uefa cup next season? Will the 5th and 6th position in the league qualify?
what round does aston villa go in. and are villa uefa games n five tv
Looks like the English sides, with England being #1 in the UEFA coefficient ranking, will all enter in the play-off round, with the exception of Fulham, which will start in Round 3.
Total Qualifying teams:
50 for first qualifying round
25 1st rd. winners and 55 more for 2nd qualifying round (80 total)
40 2nd rd. winners and 30 more for the third round (70 total)
35 3rd. rd. winners and 39 more in the play-off round (74 total)
37 play-off winners and 11 more in group stage (48 total)
24 Group stage qualifiers and 8 more in rd. of 32
So it looks like a total of 193 teams will be involved at some point in the Europa League. Ummm…good luck with that!
when shall we get full schedule of UEFA champions league 2009-10