The 2024–25 UEFA Europa League league phase began on 25 September 2024 and ended on 30 January 2025. 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 Europa League
The 2024–25 UEFA Europa League was 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 was the first season played under ...
.
RFS made their debut appearance in the Europa League since the introduction of the group stage. A total of 23 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 144.
Porto
Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...
's
Samu Aghehowa was the first-ever goalscorer of the competition's league phase.
Format
Each team played eight matches, four at home and four away, against eight different opponents, with all 36 teams ranked in a single league table. Teams were separated into four pots based on their
2024 UEFA club coefficients, and each team played two teams from each of the four pots – one at home and one away. 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 all competitions, with no access to 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 ...
.
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. Should any teams have been equal on points and tied on the first five criteria, they were considered equal in position and sorted alphabetically. Criteria 6 to 10 was only used to break ties upon completion of all matches.
Teams and seeding
The 36 teams were divided into four pots of nine teams each, with teams allocated to pots based on their 2024
UEFA club coefficients.
The participants included:
*13 teams which entered at this stage
*12 winners of the
play-off round
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
*7 losers of the
Champions League play-off round (5 from the
Champions Path, 2 from the
League Path)
*4 losers of the
Champions League third qualifying round (League Path)
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, 13:00
CEST. All 36 teams were manually drawn using physical balls. For every team manually drawn, a guest on stage pressed the button for the automated software to digitally draw their opponents at random, determining which of their matches were at home and which ones away. Each team faced two opponents from each of the four pots, one of which they faced 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.
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
Conference League 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 25–26 September (exclusive week), 3 October, 24 October, 7 November, 28 November, 12 December 2024, 23 January and 30 January 2025. All matches were played on Thursdays, except for the competition's exclusive week, which also included Wednesday fixtures, as well as a few select matches due to scheduling concerns. 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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Matchday 7
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Matchday 8
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Notes
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uefa Europa 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 ...
September 2024 sports events in Europe
October 2024 sports events in Europe
November 2024 sports events in Europe
December 2024 sports events in Europe
January 2025 sports events in Europe