Tourney Name: | UEFA Europa League |
Year: | 2024–25 |
Size: | 275px |
Num Teams: | Competition proper: 25+11 Total: 45+31 |
Associations: | 41 |
Matches: | 90 |
Goals: | 254 |
Top Scorer: | Barnabás Varga (Ferencváros) 5 goals |
Prevseason: | 2023–24 |
Nextseason: | 2025–26 |
Updated: | 28 November 2024 |
The 2024–25 UEFA Europa League is the 54th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 16th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. This is the first season played under a new format, which replaces the 32-team group stage with a 36-team league phase.[1] This increases the total number of matches played in the competition (excluding qualifying rounds) from 141 to 189. The new format also does not allow teams to transfer from the Champions League league or knockout phase to the Europa League knockout phase, and thus Europa League winners (Atalanta in the 2023–24 edition) can no longer defend their title as the winner of the Europa League automatically qualifies for the Champions League league phase.
The final will be played on 21 May 2025 at the San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao, Spain.[2] The winners of the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League will automatically qualify for the 2025–26 UEFA Champions League league phase and earn the right to play against the winners of the 2024–25 UEFA Champions League in the 2025 UEFA Super Cup.
A total of 76 teams from 41 of the 55 UEFA member associations are set to participate in the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League. Among them, 32 associations had teams directly qualifying for the Europa League, while for the other 23 associations that did not have any teams directly qualifying, 9 of them had teams playing after being transferred from the Champions League. The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:[3]
For the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2023 UEFA association coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2018–19 to 2022–23.[4]
Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below:
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Teams entering in this round | Teams advancing from the previous round | Teams transferred from Champions League | |||
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First qualifying round (12 teams) |
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Second qualifying round (18 teams) |
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Third qualifying round (26 teams) | Champions path (12 teams) |
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League path (14 teams) |
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Play-off round (24 teams) |
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League phase (36 teams) |
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The information here reflects the ongoing suspension of Russia in European football, and so the following changes to the default access were made:
As the Europa League title holders (Atalanta) qualified for the Champions League via their domestic league's standard berth allocation, the following changes to the default access list were made:
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
The third qualifying round was divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).
Two teams not playing in a national top division took part in the competition: Corvinul Hunedoara (2nd tier) and Wisła Kraków (2nd tier).Notes
The schedule of the competition is as follows.[5] 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. Compared to past seasons, one exclusive week will be introduced where both Wednesday and Thursdays are matchdays, held on September 25 and 26.[6] [7] [8]
Phase | Round | Draw date | First leg | Second leg |
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Qualifying | First qualifying round | 18 June 2024 | 11 July 2024 | 18 July 2024 |
Second qualifying round | 19 June 2024 | 25 July 2024 | 1 August 2024 | |
Third qualifying round | 22 July 2024 | 8 August 2024 | 15 August 2024 | |
Play-offs | Play-off round | 5 August 2024 | 22 August 2024 | 29 August 2024 |
League phase | Matchday 1 | 30 August 2024 | 25–26 September 2024 | |
Matchday 2 | 3 October 2024 | |||
Matchday 3 | 24 October 2024 | |||
Matchday 4 | 7 November 2024 | |||
Matchday 5 | 28 November 2024 | |||
Matchday 6 | 12 December 2024 | |||
Matchday 7 | 23 January 2025 | |||
Matchday 8 | 30 January 2025 | |||
Knockout phase | Knockout phase play-offs | 31 January 2025 | 13 February 2025 | 20 February 2025 |
Round of 16 | 21 February 2025 | 6 March 2025 | 13 March 2025 | |
Quarter-finals | 10 April 2025 | 17 April 2025 | ||
Semi-finals | 1 May 2025 | 8 May 2025 | ||
Final | 21 May 2025 at San Mamés Stadium, Bilbao |
See main article: 2024–25 UEFA Europa League league phase.
The league phase draw for the 2024–25 UEFA Europa League took place at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 30 August 2024, 13:00 CEST.[9] [10] The 36 teams were divided into four pots of nine teams each based on their UEFA club coefficient.
The 36 teams were manually drawn and then automated software digitally drew their eight different opponents at random, determining which of their matches were at home and which ones away. Each team will face two opponents from each of the four pots, one at home and one away. Teams could not face opponents from their own association, and could only be drawn against a maximum of two sides from the same association.[11] [12]
RFS made their debut appearance since the introduction of the group stage.
A total of 23 national associations are represented in the league phase.
The top eight ranked teams will receive a bye to the round of 16. The teams ranked from 9th to 24th will contest the knockout phase play-offs, with the teams ranked from 9th to 16th seeded for the draw. Teams ranked from 25th to 36th are eliminated from all competitions, with no access to the 2024–25 UEFA Conference League.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout phase and will receive a bye to the round of 16, while the teams finishing in 9th to 24th place will compete in a two-legged first round play-off to secure their path to the round of 16, with teams ranked 9th–16th being seeded and hosting the second leg at home while teams ranked 17th to 24th hosting the first leg. The winners will join the top eight, who host the second leg at home, in the round of 16. Meanwhile, teams that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated from all competitions, with no access to the 2024–25 UEFA Conference League.
See main article: 2025 UEFA Europa League final.
Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.
Rank[13] | Player | Team | Goals | Minutes played | |
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1 | Barnabás Varga | Ferencváros | 5 | 422 | |
2 | Samu Aghehowa | Porto | 4 | 422 | |
Yunus Akgün | Galatasaray | 431 | |||
Ayoub El Kaabi | Olympiacos | 445 | |||
5 | 15 players | 3 |