Europa League Table & Groups

Find the full list of groups from this season’s Europa League below.

Europa League Table Format

The group stage is where interest in the Europa League really heats up. A total of 32 teams qualify for the group stage of the Europa League every year, some of which fall down to the competition after being eliminated from the qualifying rounds of the Champions League. Others either qualify automatically through their league position or have navigated their way through the Europa League qualifying rounds.

The 32 entrants are divided into eight groups of four in a round-robin system. Every team will play each other twice at this point, once at home and once away, and the team that accumulates the most points progresses automatically to the knockout stage of the competition. Teams earn three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a defeat.

For the team that finishes second in the group, they will enter the knockout round play-offs to face one of the third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage in a two-legged tie for a place in the last 16 of the competition. As for the third-placed team in the group, they will drop to the Europa Conference League knockout play-off round where they will face a team that finished second in their Europa Conference League group.

If teams are level on points after all six group games have been played the higher position will be awarded to the team that has the better head-to-head record in the fixtures that involved the two teams. Goal difference is the next stipulation if the head-to-head record is even, with there being criteria in place that can lead all the way to disciplinary records and UEFA club coefficients in the unlikely event that two or more teams can’t be split by more simple means.

When it comes to the Europa League draw, teams are seeded within four different pots based on their UEFA club coefficient. Teams from the same association may not be drawn into the same group. One team from Pot One, Pot Two, Pot Three and Pot Four will make up each group in the Europa League and the system tends to see many of the true contenders in the tournament avoid each other until the knockout rounds of the competition.

Europa League Winners