2021–22 UEFA Europa League

2021–22 UEFA Europa League
	The Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán in Seville will host the final
Tournament details
Dates	Qualifying:; 3–26 August 2021; Competition proper:; 15 September 2021 – 18 May 2022
Teams	Competition proper: 32+8; Total: 21+37 (from 32–35 associations)
	← 2020–21 2022–23 →

The 2021–22 UEFA Europa League is the 51st season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 13th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.

The final will be played at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán in Seville, Spain. It was originally scheduled to be played at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest, Hungary.^[1] However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final, the final hosts were shifted back a year, with Budapest instead hosting the 2023 final.^[2] The winners of the tournament will automatically qualify for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League group stage, and also earn the right to play against the winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup.

This season is the first since 1998–99 (the last season when the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was played) where three major European club competitions (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and the newly-created UEFA Europa Conference League) take place, and the first outright where the Europa League (then the UEFA Cup) is the secondary competition of the three. As a result, major changes to the format of the Europa League were made. The number of teams in the group stage are reduced from 48 to 32 teams, and the number of teams participating in qualifying are also reduced significantly. The first round of the knockout phase also now involves only the group stage runners-up and the Champions League third-placed teams, with the group winners directly advancing to the round of 16.^[3]

On 24 June 2021, UEFA approved the proposal to abolish the away goals rule in all UEFA club competitions, which had been used since 1965. Therefore, if in a two-legged tie, two teams score the same number of aggregate goals, the winner of tie will not be decided by the number of away goals scored by each team, but always by 30 minutes of extra time, and if the two teams score the same number of goals in extra time, the winner will be decided by a penalty shoot-out.^[4]

As the title holders of the Europa League, Villarreal qualified for the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League. They will be unable to defend their title unless they finish third in the Champions League group stage and are transferred to the Europa League.

Association team allocation

A total of 58 teams from between 31 and 36 of the 55 UEFA member associations are expected to participate in the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League. Among them, 16 associations have teams directly qualifying for the Europa League, while for the other 39 associations that do not have any teams directly qualifying, between 15 and 20 of them may have teams playing after being transferred from the Champions League (the only member association which cannot have a participant is Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league, and can only enter their cup winner into the Europa Conference League given their association ranking). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:^[5]

Associations 1–5 each have two teams qualify.
Associations 6–15 each have one team qualify.
- As the UEFA Europa Conference League title holders' berth is not used this season, association 16 have one of their teams promoted from the Europa Conference League to the Europa League, so they also have one team qualify.
Moreover, 37 teams eliminated from the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League are transferred to the Europa League.
In future seasons, the title holders of the UEFA Europa Conference League will be given an additional entry in the Europa League. However, this berth is not used for this season as the first edition of the UEFA Europa Conference League has not been held.

Association ranking

For the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2020 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2015–16 to 2019–20.^[6]

Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below:

(UCL) – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League

Association ranking for 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

Rank	Association	Coeff.	Teams	Notes
1	Spain	102.283	2
2	England	90.462
3	Germany	74.784
4	Italy	70.653
5	France	59.248		+1 (UCL)
6	Portugal	49.449	1
7	Russia	45.549		+1 (UCL)
8	Belgium	37.900		+1 (UCL)
9	Ukraine	36.100
10	Netherlands	35.750		+1 (UCL)
11	Turkey	33.600		+1 (UCL)
12	Austria	32.925		+1 (UCL)
13	Denmark	29.250		+2 (UCL)
14	Scotland	27.875		+2 (UCL)
15	Czech Republic	27.300		+2 (UCL)
16	Cyprus	26.750		+1 (UCL)
17	Switzerland	26.400	0
18	Greece	26.300		+1 (UCL)
19	Serbia	25.500		+1 (UCL)

Rank	Association	Coeff.	Teams	Notes
20	Croatia	24.875	0	+1 (UCL)
21	Sweden	22.750
22	Norway	21.750
23	Israel	19.625
24	Kazakhstan	19.250		+1 (UCL)
25	Belarus	18.875
26	Azerbaijan	18.750		+1 (UCL)
27	Bulgaria	17.375		+1 (UCL)
28	Romania	16.700		+1 (UCL)
29	Poland	16.625		+1 (UCL)
30	Slovakia	15.875		+1 (UCL)
31	Liechtenstein	13.500
32	Slovenia	13.000		+1 (UCL)
33	Hungary	12.875		+1 (UCL)
34	Luxembourg	8.000
35	Lithuania	7.875		+1 (UCL)
36	Armenia	7.625		+1 (UCL)
37	Latvia	7.625

Rank	Association	Coeff.	Teams	Notes
38	Albania	7.375	0
39	North Macedonia	7.375
40	Bosnia and Herzegovina	6.875
41	Moldova	6.750
42	Republic of Ireland	6.700
43	Finland	6.500		+1 (UCL)
44	Georgia	5.750
45	Malta	5.750
46	Iceland	5.375
47	Wales	5.000
48	Northern Ireland	4.875
49	Gibraltar	4.750		+1 (UCL)
50	Montenegro	4.375
51	Estonia	4.375		+1 (UCL)
52	Kosovo	4.000
53	Faroe Islands	3.750
54	Andorra	2.831
55	San Marino	0.666

Distribution

The following is the access list for this season.^[7] In the default access list, the title holders of the Europa Conference League qualify for the group stage. However, since this berth is not used for this season, the following changes to the access list were made:

The cup winners of association 7 (Russia) enter the group stage instead of the play-off round.
The cup winners of association 13 (Denmark) enter the play-off round instead of the third qualifying round.
The cup winners of association 16 (Cyprus) enter the third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round of the Europa Conference League.

Access list for 2021–22 UEFA Europa League
		Teams entering in this round	Teams advancing from previous round	Teams transferred from Champions League
Third qualifying round (16 teams)	Champions Path (10 teams)			10 teams eliminated from Champions League second qualifying round (Champions Path)
Third qualifying round (16 teams)	Main Path (6 teams)	3 domestic cup winners from association 14–16		3 teams eliminated from Champions League second qualifying round (League Path)
Play-off round (20 teams)		6 domestic cup winners from associations 8–13	5 winners from the third qualifying round (Champions Path) 3 winners from the third qualifying round (Main Path)	6 teams eliminated from Champions League third qualifying round (Champions Path)
Group stage (32 teams)		7 domestic cup winners from associations 1–7 1 domestic league fourth-placed team from association 5 4 domestic league fifth-placed teams from associations 1–4^[1]	10 winners from the play-off round	4 teams eliminated from Champions League play-off round (Champions Path) 2 teams eliminated from Champions League play-off round (League Path) 4 teams eliminated from Champions League third qualifying round (League Path)
Preliminary knockout round (16 teams)			8 group runners-up from the group stage	8 group third-placed teams from Champions League group stage
Knockout phase (16 teams)			8 group winners from the group stage 8 winners from the preliminary knockout round

Teams

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:

CW: Cup winners
4th, 5th, etc.: League position of the previous season
UCL: Transferred from the Champions League
- GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
- CH/LP PO: Losers from the play-off round (Champions/League Path)
- CH/LP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round (Champions/League Path)
- CH/LP Q2: Losers from the second qualifying round (Champions/League Path)

The third qualifying round is divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).

CC: 2021 UEFA club coefficients.^[8]

Qualified teams for 2021–22 UEFA Europa League
Entry round		Teams
Knockout round play-offs		(UCL GS)	(UCL GS)	(UCL GS)	(UCL GS)
Knockout round play-offs		(UCL GS)	(UCL GS)	(UCL GS)	(UCL GS)

Group stage		Real Sociedad (5th)	Real Betis (6th)	Leicester City (CW)	West Ham United (6th)
		Eintracht Frankfurt (5th)	Bayer Leverkusen (6th)	Napoli (5th)	Lazio (6th)
		Lyon (4th)	Marseille (5th)	Braga (CW)	Lokomotiv Moscow (CW)
		Brøndby (UCL CH PO)	Dinamo Zagreb (UCL CH PO)	Ludogorets Razgrad (UCL CH PO)	Ferencváros (UCL CH PO)
		Monaco (UCL LP PO)	PSV Eindhoven (UCL LP PO)	Spartak Moscow (UCL LP Q3)	Genk (UCL LP Q3)
		Midtjylland (UCL LP Q3)	Sparta Prague (UCL LP Q3)

Play-off round		Antwerp (3rd)	Zorya Luhansk (3rd)	AZ (3rd)	Fenerbahçe (3rd)
		Sturm Graz (3rd)	Randers (CW)	Rangers (UCL CH Q3)	Slavia Prague (UCL CH Q3)
		Olympiacos (UCL CH Q3)	Red Star Belgrade (UCL CH Q3)	CFR Cluj (UCL CH Q3)	Legia Warsaw (UCL CH Q3)

Third qualifying round	CH	Omonia (UCL CH Q2)	Kairat (UCL CH Q2)	Neftçi Baku (UCL CH Q2)	Slovan Bratislava (UCL CH Q2)
		Mura (UCL CH Q2)	Žalgiris (UCL CH Q2)	Alashkert (UCL CH Q2)	HJK (UCL CH Q2)
		Lincoln Red Imps (UCL CH Q2)	Flora (UCL CH Q2)
	MP	St Johnstone (CW)	Jablonec (3rd)	Anorthosis Famagusta (CW)	Galatasaray (UCL LP Q2)
	MP	Rapid Wien (UCL LP Q2)	Celtic (UCL LP Q2)

Schedule

The schedule of the competition is as follows.^[9] Matches are scheduled for Thursdays apart from the final, which takes place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally can take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts. Scheduled kick-off times starting from the group stage are 18:45 (instead of 18:55 previously) and 21:00 CEST/CET, though exceptionally can take place at 16:30 due to geographical reasons.^[10]

All draws start at 13:00 or 13:30 CEST/CET and are held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. On 16 July 2021, UEFA announced that the group stage draw will be held in Istanbul, Turkey.^[11]

Schedule for 2021–22 UEFA Europa League
Phase	Round	Draw date	First leg	Second leg
Qualifying	Third qualifying round	19 July 2021	5 August 2021	12 August 2021
Qualifying	Play-offs	2 August 2021	19 August 2021	26 August 2021
Group stage	Matchday 1	27 August 2021	16 September 2021
	Matchday 2		30 September 2021
	Matchday 3		21 October 2021
	Matchday 4		4 November 2021
	Matchday 5		25 November 2021
	Matchday 6		9 December 2021
Knockout phase	Knockout round play-offs	13 December 2021	17 February 2022	24 February 2022
	Round of 16	25 February 2022	10 March 2022	17 March 2022
	Quarter-finals	18 March 2022	7 April 2022	14 April 2022
	Semi-finals		28 April 2022	5 May 2022
	Final		18 May 2022 at Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, Seville

Qualifying rounds

Third qualifying round

The draw for the third qualifying round was held on 19 July 2021, 13:00 CEST.^[12] The first legs were played on 3 and 5 August, and the second legs were played on 10 and 12 August 2021.

The winners of the ties advanced to the play-off round. The losers were transferred to the Europa Conference League play-off round of their respective path.

Champions Path
Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Omonia	2–2 (5–4 p)	Flora	1–0	1–2 (a.e.t.)
Mura	1–0	Žalgiris	0–0	1–0
Kairat	2–3	Alashkert	0–0	2–3 (a.e.t.)
Lincoln Red Imps	2–4	Slovan Bratislava	1–3	1–1
Neftçi Baku	2–5	HJK	2–2	0–3

Main Path
Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Jablonec	2–7	Celtic	2–4	0–3
Rapid Wien	4–2	Anorthosis Famagusta	3–0	1–2
Galatasaray	5–3	St Johnstone	1–1	4–2

Play-off round

The draw for the play-off round was held on 2 August 2021, 13:00 CEST.^[13] The first legs were played on 17, 18 and 19 August, and the second legs were played on 26 August 2021.

The winners of the ties advanced to the group stage. The losers were transferred to the Europa Conference League group stage.

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Randers	2–3	Galatasaray	1–1	1–2
Rapid Wien	6–2	Zorya Luhansk	3–0	3–2
Celtic	3–2	AZ	2–0	1–2
Fenerbahçe	6–2	HJK	1–0	5–2
Mura	1–5	Sturm Graz	1–3	0–2
Omonia	4–4 (2–3 p)	Royal Antwerp	4–2	0–2 (a.e.t.)
Olympiacos	5–2	Slovan Bratislava	3–0	2–2
Rangers	1–0	Alashkert	1–0	0–0
Slavia Prague	3–4	Legia Warsaw	2–2	1–2
Red Star Belgrade	6–1	CFR Cluj	4–0	2–1

Group stage

Moscow

Istanbul

Glasgow

Glasgow teams

Celtic

Rangers

Istanbul teams

Fenerbahçe

Galatasaray

Moscow teams

Lokomotiv Moscow

Spartak Moscow

Location of teams of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage.

Brown: Group A;

Red: Group B;

Orange: Group C;

Yellow: Group D;

Green: Group E;

Blue: Group F;

Purple: Group G;

Pink: Group H.

The draw for the group stage was held on 27 August 2021, 12:00 CEST (13:00 TRT), in Istanbul, Turkey.^[11]^[14] The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots, each of eight teams, based on their 2021 UEFA club coefficients.^[8] Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group. Prior to the draw, UEFA formed pairings of teams from the same association, including those playing in the Europa Conference League group stage (one pairing for associations with two or three teams, two pairings for associations with four or five teams), based on television audiences, where one team was drawn into Groups A–D and another team was drawn into Groups E–H, so that the two teams would have different kick-off times.^[15]

The matches will be played on 15–16 September, 30 September, 19–21 October, 4 November, 24–25 November, and 9 December 2021. The winners of each group will advance to the round of 16, while the runners-up will advance to the knockout round play-offs. The third-placed teams will be transferred to the Europa Conference League knockout round play-offs, while the fourth-placed teams will be eliminated from European competitions for the season.

Brøndby and West Ham United will make their debut appearances in the Europa League group stage (although Brøndby had previously appeared in the UEFA Cup group stage).