Europa League 2021/22 Thread

[Sly]

The draw for the first qualifying round is on the 19th July. Teams falling into this will be losers from the Champions League spots and lesser nations. 
 

Draws the 1st qualifying round of the Champions League happen on the 15th June, so it’ll be a short summer for some teams. 
 

The preliminary tournament in the Faroe Islands starts on the 22nd June; 1st round Qualifying will be finished on the 14th July; 2nd round on the 28th July; 3rd round on the 10th August. 
 

Ultimately, we’ll know all 32 group opponents and if we’ll be seeded on the 10th August. 
 

9 teams in qualifying for the Champions League have a better Co-efficient than us. You’d like to think that the vast majority of them will make it into the Champions League, they are:

 

Dinamo Zagreb - 44.5

Slavia Prague - 43.5

Olympiacos - 43

Young Boys - 35

Red Star Belgrade - 32.5

Celtic - 34

Shaktar Donetsk - 79

Benfica - 58

Monaco - 36

 

6 teams have a better co-efficient than us that are confirmed for the Europa League Group stage. They are:

 

Lyon - 76

Napoli - 74

Bayer Leverkusen - 57

Lazio - 44

Braga - 44

Einttacht Frankfurt - 33

 

We could be in pots 1 - 3 currently. In  theory at best, we’re the 7th or 8th seeds for pot 1 currently. 

 

We’d be one of the teams that the seeded teams would loom to avoid should we not make pot one, along with West Ham, Marseille, Betis and Sociedad I’d imagine. 
 

I can’t find any early odds for winners yet. 

 

 

[Sunbury Fox]

Just wondering what happens in terms of EL qualification if Villarreal win the EL final tonight.

 

If that happened, Villarreal, who finished 7th in La Liga this season, would go into the CL rather than the European Conference. As a result, would the 6th place La Liga team, Betis, fall into the Conference in their place? I think that must be the case as nations are only allowed a maximum of 7 teams in European competitions and I assume must have at least one team in each of the 3 competitions? If I'm right, that would mean only one Spanish team would qualify for the EL, which would be good news for us, I think.

Edited 26 May 2021 by Sunbury Fox

[Sly]

9 minutes ago, Sunbury Fox said:

Just wondering what happens in terms of EL qualification if Villarreal win the EL final tonight.

 

If that happened, Villarreal, who finished 7th in La Liga this season, would go into the CL rather than the European Conference. As a result, would the 6th place La Liga team, Betis, fall into the Conference in their place? I think that must be the case as nations are only allowed a maximum of 7 teams in European competitions and I assume must have at least one team in each of the 3 competitions? If I'm right, that would mean only one Spanish team would qualify for the EL, which would be good news for us, I think.

I believe that’s correct.

[KrefelderFox666]

37 minutes ago, Sunbury Fox said:

Just wondering what happens in terms of EL qualification if Villarreal win the EL final tonight.

 

If that happened, Villarreal, who finished 7th in La Liga this season, would go into the CL rather than the European Conference. As a result, would the 6th place La Liga team, Betis, fall into the Conference in their place? I think that must be the case as nations are only allowed a maximum of 7 teams in European competitions and I assume must have at least one team in each of the 3 competitions? If I'm right, that would mean only one Spanish team would qualify for the EL, which would be good news for us, I think.

I believe someone else gets the Europa Conference place. So Spain would have 5 in CL and 2 in EL with 0 in Conference League.

[Koke]

2 hours ago, Sly said:

9 teams in qualifying for the Champions League have a better Co-efficient than us. You’d like to think that the vast majority of them will make it into the Champions League, they are:

 

Dinamo Zagreb - 44.5

Slavia Prague - 43.5

Olympiacos - 43

Young Boys - 35

Red Star Belgrade - 32.5

Celtic - 34

Shaktar Donetsk - 79

Benfica - 58

Monaco - 36

 

Most of these I'd fancy us to beat anyway, as I think we are better but it requires us to turn up, not play fringe players. Monaco, Benfica and Shaktar are obviously experienced Champions League regulars so hopefully we avoid them, or they qualify for CL anyway. 

 

Give us Slavia Prague so we can smash them home and away in the group.

[SemperEadem]

25 minutes ago, Koke said:

 

Most of these I'd fancy us to beat anyway, as I think we are better but it requires us to turn up, not play fringe players. Monaco, Benfica and Shaktar are obviously experienced Champions League regulars so hopefully we avoid them, or they qualify for CL anyway. 

 

Give us Slavia Prague so we can smash them home and away in the group.

I know we lost the game but I think we would face some brunt out there for the UFS banner.

[BrummieFOX]

Cannot wait for this! Would be good to take some serious numbers away with tickets or not as we all missed out last year. 

 

Personally would love to experience Napoli.

[suffolk fox]

14 hours ago, AjcW said:

“Naples is a shithole” is a view that’s about 30 years out of date made by people who don’t like graffiti  

 

They’re not great at bin collections but that’s about it. 
 

It’s got one of the greatest long straight streets in the world for drinking/eating... would be the away day of dreams for me! 

got family living out there mate you obviously have not been there recently.  It is a first class shithole dog shit on  every pavement, pickpockets all over the place rubbish piled high on every street corner great thing about Naples is the port and the train stations coz you can get away to somwhere nice.  Also, bottles of Peroni in local Supermarkets for 99cents.  

[AjcW]

18 minutes ago, suffolk fox said:

got family living out there mate you obviously have not been there recently.  It is a first class shithole dog shit on  every pavement, pickpockets all over the place rubbish piled high on every street corner great thing about Naples is the port and the train stations coz you can get away to somwhere nice.  Also, bottles of Peroni in local Supermarkets for 99cents.  

Fair enough  was about 5 years ago, I do still quite enjoy it's 'no ****s given' charm though. 

[AjcW]

21 minutes ago, BrummieFOX said:

Cannot wait for this! Would be good to take some serious numbers away with tickets or not as we all missed out last year. 

 

Personally would love to experience Napoli.

Sadly think we will have to make the latter stages for any chance of this. Majority will be double jabbed by then and Europe might have caught up too!

[Ric Flair]

I love the types of teams that are in the Europa League. Some class sides that aren't the usual clichéd CL willy pullers.

[Gerard]

On 24/05/2021 at 15:05, moore_94 said:

Group winners advance straight to the Round of 16

 

Knockout play-off games are played between the Group Runners Up and the teams that drop down from the Champions League

 

Didn't know that, excellent. 

[Gerard]

On 24/05/2021 at 15:32, StanSP said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–22_UEFA_Europa_League

 

Most notably:

 

Bayer Leverkusen 

Marseille

Lyon

Napoli

Lazio

Frankfurt

Braga

Real Sociedad 

Real Betis 

 

 

Our coefficient is 32.000

 

(iirc it was 22.000 last season?) 

 

Also only West Ham from England.

 

IIRC the betting at the last 32 stage had the four English clubs in the top six of the betting. None of the elite English clubs in there means we'd be one of the favourites to win this. Not easy by any means but no one to fear for sure.

[AKCJ]

2 minutes ago, Gerard said:

 

Also only West Ham from England.

 

IIRC the betting at the last 32 stage had the four English clubs in the top six of the betting. None of the elite English clubs in there means we'd be one of the favourites to win this. Not easy by any means but no one to fear for sure.

Trouble is the way the Champions League seeding has worked means there are loads of  quality teams in Pot 2 this year. Which means it's likely that there will be at least a few "groups of death" which will lead to a few high-quality drop outs that will end up in the Europa League.

[AKCJ]

12 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I love the types of teams that are in the Europa League. Some class sides that aren't the usual clichéd CL willy pullers.

Braga and Prague would have been phenomenal away days last season.

[Sunbury Fox]

1 minute ago, AKCJ said:

Trouble is the way the Champions League seeding has worked means there are loads of  quality teams in Pot 2 this year. Which means it's likely that there will be at least a few "groups of death" which will lead to a few high-quality drop outs that will end up in the Europa League.

But if the Pot 2 sides finish in the top 2 of their groups that won't be a problem. Shouldn't we be more worried about strong teams being in pot 3 or 4 who might then displace one of the big boys in pots 1 or 2 in the top 2 places in CL groups?

[AKCJ]

3 minutes ago, Sunbury Fox said:

But if the Pot 2 sides finish in the top 2 of their groups that won't be a problem. Shouldn't we be more worried about strong teams being in pot 3 or 4 who might then displace one of the big boys in pots 1 or 2 in the top 2 places in CL groups?

Yes but having two strong teams in each group only needs a few of them to have a rough time and to drop to 3rd.

[shen]

On 24/05/2021 at 20:24, Sly said:

6 teams have more points than us already, with lots more qualifying rounds etc to play. It’ll be touch and go if we are seeded for the group stages. 

 

We’re ranked 51st in Europe currently, however we lose 22 points after next season, as our champions league points get wiped. We only picked up 10 points last season. So unless we win this, we’ll struggle to get seeded in future seasons. 

 

https://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/club/#/yr/2021

That link also shows the 'National Association Contribution' where England is top scorer. When you click on how the points are calculated, it mentions that either a club's coefficient is equal to the number of points accrued over last 5 seasons OR the national association coefficient (currently 20.028) whichever is highest of the two. So we'd at minimum have a coefficient of ~20 in future seasons should we qualify for European football.

[boots60]

Real Sociedad is my ideal Europa trip. San Sebastian is a beautiful city with plenty of bars & a great place for Basque Pintxos. Went there for the day a few years ago while in Bilbao & is on my list for a return trip. Decent size stadium too so no ticket problems & hopefully a big away following.

[GlennyFox55]

12 minutes ago, boots60 said:

Real Sociedad is my ideal Europa trip. San Sebastian is a beautiful city with plenty of bars & a great place for Basque Pintxos. Went there for the day a few years ago while in Bilbao & is on my list for a return trip. Decent size stadium too so no ticket problems & hopefully a big away following.

Haven’t they fairly recently redeveloped and expanded the ground to remove the running track?

[StanSP]

58 minutes ago, boots60 said:

Real Sociedad is my ideal Europa trip. San Sebastian is a beautiful city with plenty of bars & a great place for Basque Pintxos. Went there for the day a few years ago while in Bilbao & is on my list for a return trip. Decent size stadium too so no ticket problems & hopefully a big away following.

Newly redeveloped stadium as well. Lovely place. 

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, boots60 said:

Real Sociedad is my ideal Europa trip. San Sebastian is a beautiful city with plenty of bars & a great place for Basque Pintxos. Went there for the day a few years ago while in Bilbao & is on my list for a return trip. Decent size stadium too so no ticket problems & hopefully a big away following.

24 hour ferry swig an'all in to Bilbao.

[KrefelderFox666]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

24 hour ferry swig an'all in to Bilbao.

Or a 30 hour coach journey on Fox Travel!

[Dan LCFC]

11 hours ago, PhillippaT said:

Chances on being allowed a trip to Moscow?  

I think we'd be able to. Who knows. I think things are getting significantly better now.

[Dan LCFC]

7 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

I love the types of teams that are in the Europa League. Some class sides that aren't the usual clichéd CL willy pullers.

Agree completely. I obviously wanted Champions League but Europa League as an experience really isn't all doom and gloom. To be honest our Champions League group was very much a Europa League style of group. We could quite easily have ended up in a group with both Bayern & PSG. Experiences yes, but the novelty would quickly die off when we're getting our arses handed to us. I don't think we're really ready yet - we got fortunate with draws in 2017 and would have to do so next season too.

 

If we recruit well this summer we can go far in this and that'd be a better experience I think.