2019–20 UEFA Europa League


The 2019–20 UEFA Europa League is the 49th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 11th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.
The final will be played at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, Germany. The winners of the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League will earn the right to play against the winners of the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League in the 2020 UEFA Super Cup. They will also automatically qualify for the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League group stage, and if they have already qualified through their league performance, the berth reserved will be given to the third-placed team of the 2019–20 Ligue 1, the 5th-ranked association according to next season's access list.
The video assistant referee system will be used in the competition from the knockout stage onwards.
As the title holders of the Europa League, Chelsea qualified for the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League, although they had already qualified before the final through their league performance. They are unable to defend their title as they advanced to the Champions League knockout stage.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

Due to the varying rates of transmission of COVID-19 across European countries during the time of the Round of 16 first leg ties, different matches were affected in different ways. Because of this severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy at the time, the games involving Inter Milan and A.S. Roma were postponed, whereas games hosted in Greece, Germany, and Austria went ahead but behind closed doors. Games hosted in Turkey and Scotland went ahead as normal. On 15 March, UEFA announced that none of the Round of 16 second leg ties would go ahead in the following week, postponing them indefinitely, with a taskforce convened to reschedule the rest of the season. On 23 March, it was announced that the Stadion Energa Gdańsk in Gdańsk, Poland would no longer host the competition Final, originally scheduled for 27 May, but would host the 2021 Final instead.
On 17 June it was announced that the Europa League would return on 5 August and conclude on 21 August, with a last-eight tournament to be held across four venues in Germany. The 2nd leg 6 Round of 16 games that that the 1st leg had been played will be played at the original venue, however the remaining 2 games will be played as single legged games in Germany All remaining ties of the competition will be played behind closed doors due to the remaining presence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.

Final tournament venues

Association team allocation

A total of 213 teams from all 55 UEFA member associations participate in the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
For the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2018 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2013–14 to 2017–18.
Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:
The following is the access list for this season.
Changes are made to the default access list, if any of the teams that qualify for the Europa League via their domestic competitions also qualify for the Champions League as the Champions League or Europa League title holders, or if there are fewer teams transferred from the Champions League due to changes in the Champions League access list. In any case where a spot in the Europa League is vacated, cup winners of the highest-ranked associations in earlier rounds are promoted accordingly.
A Europa League place is vacated when a team qualifies for both the Champions League and the Europa League, or qualifies for the Europa League by more than one method. When a place is vacated, it is redistributed within the national association by the following rules:
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:

Club Brugge Shakhtar Donetsk Red Bull Salzburg Benfica
Olympiacos Bayer Leverkusen Inter Milan Ajax

Progrès Niederkorn Cardiff Metropolitan University St Joseph's La Fiorita
Ballymena United NSÍ Runavík Engordany Prishtina
Cliftonville KÍ Klaksvík Sant Julià
Barry Town United Europa Tre Fiori


One team not playing a national top division took part in the competition; Vaduz played in 2019–20 Swiss Challenge League, which is Switzerland's 2nd tier.
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Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows. Matches may also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts.
The competition was suspended on 17 March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. A working group was set up by UEFA to decide the calendar of the remainder of the season. On 17 June 2020, UEFA announced the revised schedule for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final of the competition, to be played in single-leg matches.

Preliminary round

In the preliminary round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2019 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.

Qualifying rounds

In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams are divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2019 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association cannot be drawn against each other.

First qualifying round

Second qualifying round

The second qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path and League Path.

Third qualifying round

The third qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path and League Path.

Play-off round

The play-off round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path and League Path.

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 30 August 2019, 13:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The 48 teams were drawn into twelve groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on their 2019 UEFA club coefficients.
In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the round of 32, where they are joined by the eight third-placed teams of the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League group stage. The matchdays are 19 September, 3 October, 24 October, 7 November, 28 November, and 12 December 2019.
A total of 26 national associations are represented in the group stage. Espanyol, Ferencváros, LASK, Oleksandriya, Wolfsberg and Wolverhampton Wanderers made their debut appearances in the group stage.
Tiebreakers

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Group I

Group J

Group K

Group L

Knockout phase

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

Bracket

Round of 32

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.
There have been 509 goals scored in 182 matches, for an average of goals per match.

Top goalscorers

Notes
Source:

Top assists

Source: