The 2021-22 Europa Conference League
I wrote this guide to soccer’s newest competition for r/soccer on Reddit, but I’m adding it to the blog too. Check out the original post here.
Fachry Zella Devandra / Unsplash
By Rob Schwartz
March 21, 2021
For those of you who don’t know, the 2021-22 football season will boast a brand new UEFA tournament: the UEFA Europa Conference League (UECL). The UECL will represent the third tier of European club competition, below the Champions League and the Europa League. Much like the Europa League is a tournament for teams that are generally a calibre below the Champions League, the UECL is for teams that are generally a calibre below the Europa League.
We’re talking clubs from the Finnish Veikkausliga, the Belarusian Premier League, the Andorran Primera Divisió, and every other top-flight domestic league from UEFA-participating countries, including the top 5 European leagues.
Yes! This is real, and it’s coming to a screen near you this summer. But before we get to the intricacies of the UECL, we need to discuss some important Europa League changes for next season.
The Europa League
The Europa League, in the past, has offered clubs from lesser known leagues a chance to compete for European glory. Starting this upcoming season, though, only clubs from the top 15 European leagues, as determined by their UEFA country coefficients, will be eligible for direct entry into the Europa League. Yes, you read that correctly:
Only clubs from the top 15 European leagues will be eligible for direct entry into the 2021-22 Europa League!
Of course, the winner of each European league will still participate in the Champions League, and losers of each round of the Champions League, through the group stage, will trickle down to the Europa League. So champions from each league will still have the “opportunity" to participate in Europa League football if they drop down from the Champions League. But non-champions from leagues outside of the top 15 will no longer have any path to participate in Europa League.
The top 15 leagues for 2021-22 UEFA competitions belong to, in order:
Of those, Spain, England, Germany, Italy, and France will each send two clubs to the Europa League. The rest will send one. If you can’t find your country in that list, then the only club from your country that can play in the Europa League is your domestic champion, and they will have to drop from the Champions League to do so.
So you can kiss goodbye to one of Basel or Young Boys — The Swiss Super League is ranked 17th. The second ranked Greek team, too, won’t have any avenue to participate in Europa League.
These changes will make for a much shorter Europa League campaign than those of the past. There will be only one Qualifying round and one Play-off round before the Group Stage, and the Group Stage is shrinking to 32 clubs from 48. The majority of participants in the Europa League will have dropped in from the Champions League.
This all sounds awfully sad for Basel. They’re currently sitting 20 points behind the leading Young Boys, which means they’re already out of the running for the Swiss Champions League spot. But now they aren’t even eligible for Europa League!
Fear not. Basel (if they can improve their form) will still have an opportunity to bask in the spotlight of European football.
The UEFA Europa Conference League
The UECL is UEFA’s solution to a long-standing competitive problem. Even in the Europa League — the second tier of European competition — smaller clubs haven’t really been able to compete with clubs from Europe’s top leagues.
Since the Europa League’s rebirth in 2009, only 7 clubs outside of the top 6 leagues (top 5 + Portugal) have made the semi-finals of the competition. That’s 16%.
Only 2 such clubs have made the final, for 9%. None have won.
This isn’t shocking, but it also doesn’t sit quite right with me. Fans of the big boys hardly pay attention when they draw Standard Liège in the Europa League Group Stage; it’s a given that they’ll advance. Similarly, this sucks for Standard Liège, who routinely get thrashed by Arsenal and Sevilla and end up third or fourth in their group. The whole affair just isn’t that fun for anyone.
So UEFA made a change for 2021-22, which will last through 2023-24 (three seasons). They’ve essentially cleaved Europa League in two. As described above, Europa League is now reserved for fallen champions and non-champions from the top 15 leagues.
Everybody else who used to get smacked in Europa League now gets to duke it out in the UECL. And the prize? The UECL winner earns automatic entry into the Group Stage of the following season’s Europa League, just like the Europa League winner earns entry into the Champions League.
Who Gets to Play?
In all, 173 clubs will participate in the UECL. Of those, 128 clubs will be direct entrants into the UECL, and the remaining 45 will have dropped in from the Europa League or Champions League. I’ll first address how the 128 direct entrants are determined.
Like the Europa League of years past, every UEFA-participating nation will enter at least one team in the UECL. However, unlike in the Europa League and the Champions League, the top leagues will send fewer teams to the UECL than the other leagues.
The top 5 leagues will each send only one club. For Spain, Germany, Italy, and France, that club will be the top club in the domestic league that doesn’t earn Champions League or Europa League football. La Liga, for example, will send its 6th-placed club (currently Real Betis), assuming that that club doesn’t earn Europa League football either: a) by winning the League Cup; or b) by a Champions/Europa-qualified club winning the League Cup.
England, excitingly, will be sending the winner of the EFL Cup to the UECL. If that club is already in European competition, though, as is likely, then the 6th-placed club in the Premier League will represent England in the UECL. At time of writing, Tottenham are 6th on the Premier League table and are in the final of the EFL Cup against Manchester City, so they’re probably my favorite to earn entry into the UECL for 2021-22. (July edit: It is Tottenham.)
The same principle for the other big leagues applies to England, too. If 5th and 6th place qualify for Europa League by virtue of a 1st-6th club winning the FA Cup, then 7th place will enter into the UECL, assuming 1st-7th wins the EFL Cup.
Leagues 6-15 will each send two clubs. These will generally be the 3rd- and 4th-placed clubs from those leagues.
Leagues 16-50 will each send three clubs: the domestic runner-up, the domestic 3rd-placed club, and the domestic cup winner. These clubs will comprise over 80% of the direct entrants into the UECL and over 60% of total UECL participants.
Leagues 51-55 will send only two clubs: the domestic runner-up and the domestic cup winner.
Liechtenstein, of course, has its own rules. Because the country of 38,000 enjoys only 7 professional clubs, it doesn’t have a domestic league. However, those clubs sportingly compete for a domestic cup, and the winner of that cup will be the sole Liechtensteinian club to earn entry into the UECL.
Those are all the direct entrants into the UECL. The rest of the participants will drop down from the Champions League and the Europa League.
Of the 45 drop-downs, 20 will enter UECL Qualifiers directly from the Champions League’s earliest Qualifying rounds, so expect to see the Gibraltarian champions and runners-up in the UECL.
7 Europa League teams will drop into the UECL during the Play-off round, which will send 22 clubs through to the Group Stage. An additional 18 Europa League clubs will drop down during the Group Stage and beyond.
The Format
The UECL sports three Qualifying Rounds and a Play-off round prior to the Group Stage. The clubs from the lowest-ranked leagues will enter earliest, and clubs with better credentials (better league position, better league, or both) will enter later in the qualification process.
The big clubs, from the top 5 leagues, will enter during the Play-off stage, where they’ll have to compete for a spot in the UECL Group Stage against: a) clubs that have advanced from earlier qualifying rounds; and b) the 7 Europa League clubs that lost in the final qualifying round of the Europa League and dropped down.
22 teams will advance from the Play-offs to the Group Stage, where 10 more Europa League drop-downs will join the competition. The 8 winners of the Group Stage will move onto the Knockout rounds.
Group Stage runners-up, though, will have to earn their place in the Knockouts. The 8 Europa League clubs that come in third in their Europa League Group Stage will drop down and compete with the 8 UECL Group Stage runners-up for Knockout spots.
With 16 teams remaining after the Group Stage and preliminary Knockouts, the tournament will begin the Knockout stage and progress exactly like the Champions League and Europa League.
And the winner of the whole deal will earn automatic entry into the Europa League Group Stage the following year.
That’s It
That’s the tournament! There are clearly lots of changes on the horizon for continental competitions, and I’m looking forward to watching some fierce contests between lesser known sides take place in the UECL.
UECL matches will be on Thursdays, at the same times as Europa League matches, and the first Qualifying Round begins on July 8, 2021. I'll probably start watching when the big clubs enter the fray, during the Play-offs, which begin on August 19, 2021.
The Group Stage will start a month later, on September 16, 2021. And the inaugural UECL Final will take place on May 22, 2022, at Arena Kombëtare in Tirana, Albania.
Save the date now, because we’ll all be following the UECL Knockouts at this time next year.
TL;DR
The Europa League is accepting fewer teams for seasons 2021-22 through 2023-24. The teams that got kicked out of Europa League due to this change will be joining a new competition: The Europa Conference League. It's basically the same thing to Europa League that Europa League is to the Champions League. The winner of the tournament will earn automatic entry to the Europa League Group Stage.
Maybe Tottenham can win a trophy!
We’re talking clubs from the Finnish Veikkausliga, the Belarusian Premier League, the Andorran Primera Divisió, and every other top-flight domestic league from UEFA-participating countries, including the top 5 European leagues.
Yes! This is real, and it’s coming to a screen near you this summer. But before we get to the intricacies of the UECL, we need to discuss some important Europa League changes for next season.
The Europa League
The Europa League, in the past, has offered clubs from lesser known leagues a chance to compete for European glory. Starting this upcoming season, though, only clubs from the top 15 European leagues, as determined by their UEFA country coefficients, will be eligible for direct entry into the Europa League. Yes, you read that correctly:
Only clubs from the top 15 European leagues will be eligible for direct entry into the 2021-22 Europa League!
Of course, the winner of each European league will still participate in the Champions League, and losers of each round of the Champions League, through the group stage, will trickle down to the Europa League. So champions from each league will still have the “opportunity" to participate in Europa League football if they drop down from the Champions League. But non-champions from leagues outside of the top 15 will no longer have any path to participate in Europa League.
The top 15 leagues for 2021-22 UEFA competitions belong to, in order:
- Spain
- England
- Germany
- Italy
- France
- Portugal
- Russia
- Belgium
- Ukraine
- Netherlands
- Turkey
- Austria
- Denmark
- Scotland
- Czech Republic
Of those, Spain, England, Germany, Italy, and France will each send two clubs to the Europa League. The rest will send one. If you can’t find your country in that list, then the only club from your country that can play in the Europa League is your domestic champion, and they will have to drop from the Champions League to do so.
So you can kiss goodbye to one of Basel or Young Boys — The Swiss Super League is ranked 17th. The second ranked Greek team, too, won’t have any avenue to participate in Europa League.
These changes will make for a much shorter Europa League campaign than those of the past. There will be only one Qualifying round and one Play-off round before the Group Stage, and the Group Stage is shrinking to 32 clubs from 48. The majority of participants in the Europa League will have dropped in from the Champions League.
This all sounds awfully sad for Basel. They’re currently sitting 20 points behind the leading Young Boys, which means they’re already out of the running for the Swiss Champions League spot. But now they aren’t even eligible for Europa League!
Fear not. Basel (if they can improve their form) will still have an opportunity to bask in the spotlight of European football.
The UEFA Europa Conference League
The UECL is UEFA’s solution to a long-standing competitive problem. Even in the Europa League — the second tier of European competition — smaller clubs haven’t really been able to compete with clubs from Europe’s top leagues.
Since the Europa League’s rebirth in 2009, only 7 clubs outside of the top 6 leagues (top 5 + Portugal) have made the semi-finals of the competition. That’s 16%.
Only 2 such clubs have made the final, for 9%. None have won.
This isn’t shocking, but it also doesn’t sit quite right with me. Fans of the big boys hardly pay attention when they draw Standard Liège in the Europa League Group Stage; it’s a given that they’ll advance. Similarly, this sucks for Standard Liège, who routinely get thrashed by Arsenal and Sevilla and end up third or fourth in their group. The whole affair just isn’t that fun for anyone.
So UEFA made a change for 2021-22, which will last through 2023-24 (three seasons). They’ve essentially cleaved Europa League in two. As described above, Europa League is now reserved for fallen champions and non-champions from the top 15 leagues.
Everybody else who used to get smacked in Europa League now gets to duke it out in the UECL. And the prize? The UECL winner earns automatic entry into the Group Stage of the following season’s Europa League, just like the Europa League winner earns entry into the Champions League.
Who Gets to Play?
In all, 173 clubs will participate in the UECL. Of those, 128 clubs will be direct entrants into the UECL, and the remaining 45 will have dropped in from the Europa League or Champions League. I’ll first address how the 128 direct entrants are determined.
Like the Europa League of years past, every UEFA-participating nation will enter at least one team in the UECL. However, unlike in the Europa League and the Champions League, the top leagues will send fewer teams to the UECL than the other leagues.
The top 5 leagues will each send only one club. For Spain, Germany, Italy, and France, that club will be the top club in the domestic league that doesn’t earn Champions League or Europa League football. La Liga, for example, will send its 6th-placed club (currently Real Betis), assuming that that club doesn’t earn Europa League football either: a) by winning the League Cup; or b) by a Champions/Europa-qualified club winning the League Cup.
England, excitingly, will be sending the winner of the EFL Cup to the UECL. If that club is already in European competition, though, as is likely, then the 6th-placed club in the Premier League will represent England in the UECL. At time of writing, Tottenham are 6th on the Premier League table and are in the final of the EFL Cup against Manchester City, so they’re probably my favorite to earn entry into the UECL for 2021-22. (July edit: It is Tottenham.)
The same principle for the other big leagues applies to England, too. If 5th and 6th place qualify for Europa League by virtue of a 1st-6th club winning the FA Cup, then 7th place will enter into the UECL, assuming 1st-7th wins the EFL Cup.
Leagues 6-15 will each send two clubs. These will generally be the 3rd- and 4th-placed clubs from those leagues.
Leagues 16-50 will each send three clubs: the domestic runner-up, the domestic 3rd-placed club, and the domestic cup winner. These clubs will comprise over 80% of the direct entrants into the UECL and over 60% of total UECL participants.
Leagues 51-55 will send only two clubs: the domestic runner-up and the domestic cup winner.
Liechtenstein, of course, has its own rules. Because the country of 38,000 enjoys only 7 professional clubs, it doesn’t have a domestic league. However, those clubs sportingly compete for a domestic cup, and the winner of that cup will be the sole Liechtensteinian club to earn entry into the UECL.
Those are all the direct entrants into the UECL. The rest of the participants will drop down from the Champions League and the Europa League.
Of the 45 drop-downs, 20 will enter UECL Qualifiers directly from the Champions League’s earliest Qualifying rounds, so expect to see the Gibraltarian champions and runners-up in the UECL.
7 Europa League teams will drop into the UECL during the Play-off round, which will send 22 clubs through to the Group Stage. An additional 18 Europa League clubs will drop down during the Group Stage and beyond.
The Format
The UECL sports three Qualifying Rounds and a Play-off round prior to the Group Stage. The clubs from the lowest-ranked leagues will enter earliest, and clubs with better credentials (better league position, better league, or both) will enter later in the qualification process.
The big clubs, from the top 5 leagues, will enter during the Play-off stage, where they’ll have to compete for a spot in the UECL Group Stage against: a) clubs that have advanced from earlier qualifying rounds; and b) the 7 Europa League clubs that lost in the final qualifying round of the Europa League and dropped down.
22 teams will advance from the Play-offs to the Group Stage, where 10 more Europa League drop-downs will join the competition. The 8 winners of the Group Stage will move onto the Knockout rounds.
Group Stage runners-up, though, will have to earn their place in the Knockouts. The 8 Europa League clubs that come in third in their Europa League Group Stage will drop down and compete with the 8 UECL Group Stage runners-up for Knockout spots.
With 16 teams remaining after the Group Stage and preliminary Knockouts, the tournament will begin the Knockout stage and progress exactly like the Champions League and Europa League.
And the winner of the whole deal will earn automatic entry into the Europa League Group Stage the following year.
That’s It
That’s the tournament! There are clearly lots of changes on the horizon for continental competitions, and I’m looking forward to watching some fierce contests between lesser known sides take place in the UECL.
UECL matches will be on Thursdays, at the same times as Europa League matches, and the first Qualifying Round begins on July 8, 2021. I'll probably start watching when the big clubs enter the fray, during the Play-offs, which begin on August 19, 2021.
The Group Stage will start a month later, on September 16, 2021. And the inaugural UECL Final will take place on May 22, 2022, at Arena Kombëtare in Tirana, Albania.
Save the date now, because we’ll all be following the UECL Knockouts at this time next year.
TL;DR
The Europa League is accepting fewer teams for seasons 2021-22 through 2023-24. The teams that got kicked out of Europa League due to this change will be joining a new competition: The Europa Conference League. It's basically the same thing to Europa League that Europa League is to the Champions League. The winner of the tournament will earn automatic entry to the Europa League Group Stage.
Maybe Tottenham can win a trophy!
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