2022–23 UEFA Europa Conference League

The 2022–23 UEFA Europa Conference League was the second season of the UEFA Europa Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA.

The final was played at Fortuna Arena in Prague, Czech Republic. It was won by West Ham United, who defeated Fiorentina 2–1, and qualified for the 2023–24 UEFA Europa League group stage as a result.

As the title holders, Roma qualified for the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League. They were unable to defend their title after advancing to the Europa League knockout phase.

Association team allocation

A total of 177 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations (excluding Russia) participated in the 2022–23 UEFA Europa Conference League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
*Associations 1–5 each had one team qualify.
*Associations 6–17 (except Russia) and 51–55 each had two teams qualify.
*Associations 18–50 (except Liechtenstein) each had three teams qualify.
*Liechtenstein had one team qualify as they organized only a domestic cup and no domestic league.
*Moreover, 18 teams eliminated from the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League and 25 teams eliminated from the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League were transferred to the Europa Conference League.

Association ranking

For the 2022–23 UEFA Europa Conference League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2021 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2016–17 to 2020–21.

Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa Conference League, as noted below:
* – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League
* – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Europa League

Distribution

The following was the access list for this season. In the default access list, the title holders of the Europa Conference League qualified for the Europa League group stage.

Due to the suspension of Russia for the 2022–23 European season, the following changes to the access list were made:

* The cup winners of association 16 (Serbia) enter the Europa League third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round.
* The cup winners of associations 18 (Croatia) and 19 (Switzerland) enter the third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round.
* The cup winners of associations 30 to 39 (Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Ireland, North Macedonia and Armenia) enter the second qualifying round instead of the first qualifying round.

Since several changes were made in the Europa League access list following the qualification of the Europa Conference League title holders to the Europa League group stage, the following changes to the access list were made:

* The cup winners of association 17 (Czech Republic) enter the Europa League third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round.
* The cup winners of association 20 (Greece) enter the third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round.
* The cup winners of associations 40 (Latvia) and 41 (Albania) enter the second qualifying round instead of the first qualifying round.

Moreover, in the default access list, originally 16 losers from the Champions League first qualifying round were transferred to the Europa Conference League second qualifying round (Champions Path). However, since the Champions League title holders, Real Madrid, which were guaranteed a berth in the Champions League group stage, already qualified via their domestic league, only 15 losers from the Champions League first qualifying round were transferred to the Europa Conference League second qualifying round (Champions Path) after the Champions League access list was rebalanced. As a result, only 16 teams entered the Champions Path second qualifying round (two of the losers from the Champions League first qualifying round were drawn to receive byes to the third qualifying round).

Teams

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
*CW: Domestic cup winners
*2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.: League position of the previous season
*Abd-: League positions of abandoned season as determined by the national association; all teams were subject to approval by UEFA
*LC: League cup winners
*RW: Regular season winners
*PW: End-of-season Europa Conference League play-offs winners
*UCL: Transferred from the Champions League
**Q1: Losers from the first qualifying round
**PR: Losers from the preliminary round (F: final; SF: semi-finals)
*UEL: Transferred from the Europa League
**GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
**PO: Losers from the play-off round
**CH/MP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round (Champions/Main Path)

The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round were divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).

One team not playing in a national top division will take part in the competition: Vaduz ( 2nd tier).

Notes

Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition was as follows. Matches were scheduled for Thursdays apart from the final, which took place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally could take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts (especially featuring teams from associations where there were few approved stadiums, such as Gibraltar and Wales). Scheduled kick-off times starting from the group stage were 18:45 and 21:00 CEST/CET, though exceptionally could take place at 16:30 due to geographical reasons.

As the 2022 FIFA World Cup took place in Qatar between 20 November and 18 December 2022, the group stage commenced in the first week of September 2022 and concluded in the first week of November 2022 to make way for the World Cup.

The draws for the qualifying round were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. The group stage draw took place in Istanbul, Turkey.

Qualifying rounds

First qualifying round

Second qualifying round

Third qualifying round

Play-off round

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 26 August 2022. 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 2022 UEFA club coefficients. Teams from the same association and, for political reasons, teams from Serbia and Kosovo could not be drawn into the same group.

All teams besides AZ, Basel, CFR Cluj, Gent, Partizan, Slavia Prague and Slovan Bratislava, who competed in last season's group stage, made their debut appearances in the group stage. Ballkani, Djurgårdens IF, Dnipro-1, Pyunik, RFS, Silkeborg, Vaduz and Žalgiris made their debut appearances in a UEFA competition group stage. Ballkani, Vaduz and Žalgiris were the first teams from Kosovo, Liechtenstein and Lithuania, respectively, to play in a UEFA competition group stage.

A total of 28 national associations were represented in the group stage.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Knockout phase

In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

Bracket

Knockout round play-offs

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.

Top goalscorers

Team of the Season

The UEFA technical study group selected the following players as the team of the tournament.

Player of the Season

* Declan Rice ( West Ham United)

Young Player of the Season

* Andy Diouf ( Basel)

See also

* 2022–23 UEFA Champions League
*2022–23 UEFA Europa League
* 2022–23 UEFA Women's Champions League
* 2022–23 UEFA Youth League

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:2022-23 UEFA Europa Conference League

UEFA Conference League seasons
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Conference League