The 2024–25 UEFA Conference League league phase began on 2 October and ended on 19 December 2024. A total of 36 teams competed in the league phase to decide the 24 places in the
knockout phase
A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...
of the
2024–25 UEFA Conference League
The 2024–25 UEFA Conference League was the fourth season of the UEFA Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA.
From this season, the competition was renamed from the UEFA Europa Conference League to the ...
.
Borac Banja Luka
Fudbalski klub Borac Banja Luka (Serbian Cyrillic: Фудбалски клуб Бopaц Бања Лука, ) is a Bosnian Serb professional football club, based in the city of Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is the main ...
,
Celje
Celje (, , ) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, third-largest city in Slovenia. It is a regional center of the traditional Slovenian region of Styria (Slovenia), Styria and the administrative seat of the City Municipality of Celje. Th ...
,
Cercle Brugge
Cercle Brugge Koninklijke Sportvereniging () is a Belgian professional football club based in Bruges. They compete in the Belgian Pro League, the top flight of Belgian football. Their matricule number is 12. The club plays home games at the 29 ...
,
1. FC Heidenheim,
Jagiellonia Białystok
Jagiellonia Białystok () is a Polish professional football club based in Białystok that plays in the Ekstraklasa, the top level of Polish football. The club was founded in 1920 by soldiers in the 42nd Infantry Regiment Reserve Battalion in Bi ...
,
Larne
Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic Ireland, Gaelic territory)[Larne/Latharna]
Placenames Database of Ireland. is a to ...
,
Noah
Noah (; , also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian Patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baháʼí literature, ...
,
Pafos
Paphos, also spelled as Pafos, is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and New Paphos. It is the fourth-largest cit ...
,
Petrocub Hîncești,
The New Saints
The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club, commonly known as The New Saints () or TNS FC, are an English professional football club that play in the , but are based completely within England, in Oswestry, Shropshire. They a ...
and
Víkingur Reykjavík Víkingur can refer to:
* The Icelandic and Faroese word for Viking
Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pira ...
made their debut appearances in a major UEFA competition group or league phase. Noah became the first club in Conference League history to successfully navigate all four rounds of qualification, while The New Saints and Larne were the first teams from
Wales
Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
and
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
associations, respectively, to play in a major UEFA competition group or league stage. A total of 29 national associations were represented in the league phase.
This was the first season with the
single-league format, which replaced the group format used until the
previous season. With the format change, the number of matches prior to the knockout phase increased from 96 to 108.
Vitória de Guimarães
Vitoria or Vitória may refer to:
People
* Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546), a Spanish Renaissance theologian
* Alberto Vitoria (1956–2010), Spanish footballer
* Rui Vitória (born 1970), Portuguese retired footballer
* Sofia Vitória (bor ...
'
Samu was the first-ever goalscorer of the competition's league phase.
Format
Each team played six matches, three at home and three away, against six different opponents, with all 36 teams ranked in a single league table. Teams were separated into six pots based on their
2024 UEFA club coefficients, and each team played one team from each of the six pots. The top eight ranked teams received 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 were eliminated from the competition.
Tiebreakers
Teams were ranked according to
points
A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to:
Mathematics
* Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...
(3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams were equal on points upon completion of the league phase, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine their rankings:
#Goal difference;
#Goals scored;
#Away goals scored;
#Wins;
#Away wins;
#Higher number of points obtained collectively by league phase opponents;
#Superior collective goal difference of league phase opponents;
#Higher number of goals scored collectively by league phase opponents;
#Lower disciplinary points total (direct red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
#
UEFA club coefficient
In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments (country rankings only), ...
.
During the league phase, criteria 1 to 5 were used to rank teams who had equal number of points. If any teams were equal on points and tied on the first five criteria, they were considered equal in position and sorted alphabetically. Criteria 6 to 10 were only used to break ties upon completion of all matches.
Teams and seeding
The 36 teams were divided into six pots of six teams each, with teams allocated to pots based on their 2024
UEFA club coefficients.
The participants included:
*24 winners of the
play-off round (5 from the
Champions Path, 19 from the
Main Path)
*12 losers of the
Europa League play-off round
Notes
Draw
The draw for the league phase pairings was held at the
Grimaldi Forum
The Grimaldi Forum Monaco, inaugurated in 2000 and named after the historical reigning family of Monaco, the House of Grimaldi, is an international event venue located in the Larvotto ward of Monaco. It hosts approximately 120 events and sees ...
in
Monaco
Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...
on 30 August 2024, 14:30
CEST. All 36 teams were manually drawn using physical balls. For every team manually drawn, automated software digitally drew their opponents at random, determining which of their matches were at home and which ones were away. Each team faced one opponent from each of the six pots, three of which they faced at home and three away. For the purposes of determining match venues, adjacent pots were paired (Pot 1 with 2, 3 with 4, and 5 with 6) so that, for each pot pairing, teams faced one opponent 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. The draw started with Pot 1, assigning opponents to all teams, one after the other, and continued with the other pots in ascending order until all teams were assigned their opponents.
The switch to a primarily computer-based draw was made due to issues with the complexity and duration required by a manual draw. The draw software, developed by AE Live, guaranteed total randomness within the framework of the draw conditions and prevented any deadlock situations. The software was reviewed by external auditor
Ernst & Young
EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...
, which also provided review and control of the manual and digital draw operations on-site.
''The venue for each club's fixtures is shown in brackets below (H: home; A: away).''
League phase table
Results summary
Matches
The fixture list was announced on 31 August 2024, the day after the draw.
This was to ensure no calendar clashes with teams in
Champions League and
Europa League
The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...
playing in the same cities.
In principle, each team did not play more than two home matches or two away matches in a row, and played one home match and one away match across both the first and last two matchdays. The matches were played on 3 October, 24 October, 7 November, 28 November, 12 December and 19 December 2024 (exclusive week). Matches were generally played on Thursdays. In principle, the scheduled kick-off times were 16:30, 18:45 and 21:00 CET/CEST. All fixtures on the final matchday were played simultaneously at 21:00.
Times are
CET
CET or cet may refer to:
Places
* Cet, Albania
* Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus
* Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Comcast En ...
or
CEST, as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).
Matchday 1
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Matchday 2
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Matchday 3
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Matchday 4
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Matchday 5
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Matchday 6
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Notes
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uefa Conference League league phase 2024-25
league phase
2024-25
A coxless four, abbreviated as a 4- and also called a straight four, is a racing shell used in the sport of competitive rowing. It is designed for four persons who propel the boat with sweep oars, without a coxswain.
The crew consists of four ...
October 2024 sports events in Europe
November 2024 sports events in Europe
December 2024 sports events in Europe