The Barbarian's Home-Field Romance

The Europa League group-stage draw followed rules similar to those of the Champions League group-stage draw.

The teams that advanced from the qualifying playoffs, the ten teams eliminated in the fourth round of the Champions League qualifiers, the defending champions, and the other participating teams made up a total of forty-eight teams. They were divided into four pots according to their UEFA coefficients.

The defending champions, Atlético Madrid, and the eleven other teams with the highest UEFA coefficients were placed in the first pot.

They were Atlético Madrid, Porto, Liverpool, Seville, Saint Petersburg Zenit, Eindhoven, Stuttgart, Alkmaar, Moscow Central Army, Sporting Lisbon, Juventus, and Villarreal.

Man City, Getafe, Paris Saint-Germain, Dynamo Kyiv, Palermo, Lille, Leverkusen, and five other teams were placed in the second pot. The third and fourth pots were then formed in the same manner.

Just like in the Champions League group stage, the Europa League group stage consisted of twelve groups. One team was drawn from each of the four pots to form a group, and the teams played home-and-away round-robin matches. At the end, the top two teams according to group-stage points advanced.

The twenty-four teams drawn into the group stage were joined by the eight teams eliminated from the Champions League after finishing third in their groups, forming the Round of 32 and entering the Europa League knockout stage.

Finally, the Europa League final would be held in Dublin in mid-May of the following year.

In terms of its format, the Europa League felt somewhat like a miniature Champions League. UEFA had in fact always been working to turn the Europa League into the second tier of the Champions League. There had even been reports that the Europa League winner might receive a Champions League group-stage berth in the future.

That was undoubtedly quite appealing.