The 2021–22 UEFA Europa League was the 51st season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 13th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.

Eintracht Frankfurt defeated Rangers 5–4 on penalties following a 1–1 draw after extra time in the final played at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium in Seville, Spain, winning the competition for the second time in club history, and the first since 1980. The final was originally scheduled to be played at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest, Hungary. However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final, the final hosts were shifted back a year, with Budapest instead hosting the 2023 final. As winners, Eintracht Frankfurt automatically qualified for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League group stage, and also earned the right to play against the winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League, Real Madrid, in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup.

This season was the first since 1999–2000 (the first season after the dissolution of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup) where three major European club competitions (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and the newly created UEFA Europa Conference League) take place, and the first outright where the Europa League (then the UEFA Cup) is the secondary competition of the three. As a result, major changes to the format of the Europa League were made. The number of teams in the group stage was reduced from 48 to 32 teams, and the number of teams participating in qualifying was also reduced significantly. The first round of the knockout phase also now involved only the group stage runners-up and the Champions League third-placed teams, with the group winners directly advancing to the round of 16.

As the title holders Villarreal qualified for the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League, they were unable to defend their title as they advanced to the Champions League knockout stage, and were eliminated by Liverpool in the semi-finals.

On 24 June 2021, UEFA approved the proposal to abolish the away goals rule in all UEFA club competitions, which had been used since 1965. Therefore, if in a two-legged tie, two teams scored the same number of aggregate goals, the winner of tie was not decided by the number of away goals scored by each team, but always by 30 minutes of extra time, and if the two teams scored the same number of goals in extra time, the winner was decided by a penalty shoot-out.

Association team allocation
A total of 58 teams from 33 of the 55 UEFA member associations participated in the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League. Among them, 16 associations had teams directly qualifying for the Europa League, while for the other 39 associations that did not have any teams directly qualifying, 17 of them had teams playing after being transferred from the Champions League (the only member association which could not have a participant was Liechtenstein, which did not organise a domestic league, and could only enter their cup winner into the Europa Conference League given their association ranking). 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 two teams qualify.
Associations 6–15 each had one team qualify.
As the UEFA Europa Conference League title holders' berth was not used this season, association 16 had one of their teams promoted from the Europa Conference League to the Europa League, so they also had one team qualify.
Moreover, 37 teams eliminated from the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League were transferred to the Europa League.
In future seasons, the title holders of the UEFA Europa Conference League would be given an additional entry in the Europa League. However, this berth was not used for this season as the first edition of the UEFA Europa Conference League had not been held.

Association ranking
For the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2020 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2015–16 to 2019–20.

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

Distribution
The following is the access list for this season. In the default access list, the title holders of the Europa Conference League qualified for the group stage. However, since this berth was not used for this season, the following changes to the access list were made:
The cup winners of association 7 (Russia) enter the group stage instead of the play-off round.
The cup winners of association 13 (Denmark) enter the play-off round instead of the third qualifying round.
The cup winners of association 16 (Cyprus) enter the third qualifying round instead of the Europa Conference League second qualifying round.

Teams

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
CW: Cup winners
4th, 5th, etc.: League position of the previous season

UCL: Transferred from the Champions League
GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
CH/LP PO: Losers from the play-off round (Champions/League Path)
CH/LP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round (Champions/League Path)
CH/LP Q2: Losers from the second qualifying round (Champions/League Path)

The third qualifying round was divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).

CC: 2021 UEFA club coefficients.

Schedule
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. Scheduled kick-off times starting from the group stage were 18:45 (instead of 18:55 previously) and 21:00 CEST/CET, though exceptionally could take place at 16:30 due to geographical reasons.

All draws started at 13:00 or 13:30 CEST/CET and were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. On 16 July 2021, UEFA announced that the group stage draw would be held in Istanbul, Turkey.

Third qualifying round

Play-off round

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 27 August 2021, 12:00 CEST (13:00 TRT), in Istanbul, Turkey. 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 2021 UEFA club coefficients. Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group. Prior to the draw, UEFA formed pairings of teams from the same association, including those playing in the Europa Conference League group stage (one pairing for associations with two or three teams, two pairings for associations with four or five teams), based on television audiences, where one team was drawn into Groups A–D and another team was drawn into Groups E–H, so that the two teams would have different kick-off times.

The matches were played on 15–16 September, 30 September, 19–21 October, 4 November, 24–25 November, and 9 December 2021. The winners of each group advanced to the round of 16, while the runners-up advanced to the knockout round play-offs. The third-placed teams were transferred to the Europa Conference League knockout round play-offs, while the fourth-placed teams were eliminated from European competitions for the season.

Brøndby and West Ham United made their debut appearances in the Europa League group stage (although Brøndby had previously appeared in the UEFA Cup 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 round and play-off round.

Top goalscorers

Notes

Top assists

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

Player of the Season
  Filip Kostić ( Eintracht Frankfurt)

Young Player of the Season
  Ansgar Knauff ( Eintracht Frankfurt)

See also
2021–22 UEFA Champions League
2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League
2022 UEFA Super Cup
2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League
2021–22 UEFA Youth League

References

External links

 
1
2021-22
Sports events affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine
2021-22년 UEFA 유로파리그(2021-22 UEFA Europa League)는 유럽 축구 연맹이 주관하는 유럽의 두 번째 권위를 가진 축구 대회의 51번째 시즌이자, UEFA컵에서 UEFA 유로파리그로 바뀐 뒤 13번째 시즌이다. 결승전은 스페인 세비야에 위치한 라몬 산체스 피스후안 경기장에서 개최될 예정이다.

국가별 참가팀 수 배분 
3부리그 격인 UEFA 유로파 컨퍼런스리그가 창설되므로 55개 유럽축구연맹 소속 국가축구협회들 중 30~35개 회원국들에서 총 57팀들이 2021–22 UEFA 유로파리그에 참가할 것으로 예상된다. 리그 랭킹은 UEFA 계수를 기준으로 하였다.

 리그 랭킹 1–5위 국가축구협회는 각 2팀씩 참가한다.
 리그 랭킹 6-15위 국가축구협회는 각 1팀씩 참가한다.
 UEFA 유로파컨퍼런스리그 우승팀 몫이 이 시즌에 사용되지 아니하므로, 리그 랭킹 16위 국가축구협회도 역시 1팀씩 참가한다.
 2021-22년 UEFA 챔피언스리그에서 탈락한 37개팀들은 유로파리그로 전환된다.
 미래 시즌에, UEFA 유로파 컨퍼런스리그 우승팀은 자동으로 다음 시즌 UEFA 유로파리그 본선에 진출할 것이다. 이번 시즌엔 유로파 컨퍼런스리그가 신설되므로 해당 대회 우승팀 몫 유로파리그 자동본선참가권은 사용되지 않을 것이다.

참가팀수 배분 
The following is the default access list.

기본 참가팀 리스트에서, UEFA 유로파 컨퍼런스리그 우승팀은 자동으로 다음 시즌 UEFA 유로파리그 본선에 진출한다. 그러나, 유로파 컨퍼런스리그가 이번 시즌에 신설되므로 이번 시즌에 유로파 컨퍼런스리그 우승팀 몫 자리는 사용되지 않는다. 따라서, 아래 순서대로 유로파리그 참가권을 1단계씩 승급하여 승계한다.

 리그 랭킹 7위인 러시아 컵 우승팀이 플레이오프를 건너뛰고 유로파리그 본선에 진출한다.
 리그 랭킹 13위인 덴마크 축구협회컵 우승팀이 3차예선을 건너뛰고 플레이오프에 진출한다.
 리그 랭킹 16위인 키프로스 축구협회컵 우승팀이 유로파컨퍼런스리그 2차예선 대신, 유로파리그 3차예선에 진출한다.

참가팀 

아래 라벨은 각국리그 최종 순위와 그에 따른 유로파리그 참가 시작 단계를 뜻한다.:
 CW: FA컵 우승팀
 2위, 3위, 4위, 5위, 6위, 기타: 리그 순위
 LC: 리그컵 우승팀
 RW: 정규시즌 우승팀
 PW: 시즌말 유로파리그 플레이오프 우승팀
 UCL: 챔피언스리그로부터 전환
 GS: 조별 리그 각조 3위팀
 PO: 플레이오프 탈락팀
 Q3: 3차예선 탈락팀
 Q2: 2차예선 탈락팀
 Q1: 1차예선 탈락팀
 PR: 예비예선 탈락팀

대회 일정

예선

3차 예선 

|+우승팀 루트

|+메인 루트

플레이오프 예선

시드 배정 

Pot 1 (협회 랭킹 기준)
 올랭피크 리옹 CC: 75.000
 나폴리 CC: 74.000
 바이어 레버쿠젠 CC: 57.000
 디나모 자그레브 CC: 44.500
 라치오 CC: 44.000
 올림피아코스 CC: 43.000
 모나코 CC: 36.000
 브라가 CC: 35.000

Pot 2
 셀틱 CC: 34.000 아인트라흐트 프랑크푸르트 CC: 33.000 츠르베나 즈베즈다 CC: 32.500 레스터 시티 CC: 32.000 레인저스 CC: 31.250 로코모티프 모스크바 CC: 31.000 헹크 CC:30.000 에인트호번 CC: 29.000Pot 3
 올랭피크 드 마르세유 CC: 28.000 루도고레츠 라즈그라드 CC: 28.000 웨스트햄 유나이티드 CC: 20.113 레알 소시에다드 CC: 19.571 레알 베티스 CC: 19.571 페네르바흐체 CC: 19.500 스파르타크 모스크바 CC: 18.500 스파르타 프라하 CC: 17.500Pot 4
 갈라타사라이 CC: 17.000 라피트 빈 CC: 17.000 레기아 바르샤바 CC: 16.500 미트윌란 CC: 13.500 페렌츠바로시 CC: 13.500 로열 앤트워프 CC: 10.500 슈투름 그라츠 CC: 7.165 브뢴뷔 CC: 7.000''

조별 리그

A조

B조

C조 

우크라이나 침공으로 스파르타크 모스크바 실격패 처리됨

D조

E조

F조

G조

H조

결선 토너먼트 

결선 토너먼트에서, 팀들은 결승전(중립지역에서 단판경기)을 제외하고 홈앤드어웨이 방식으로 단계별로 2팀씩 총 2경기씩 치른다. 각 라운드 당 대진추첨 방식은 아래와 같다.:
 녹아웃라운드 플레이오프에서 챔피언스리그 각 조 3위 팀(시드 배정)들과 유로파리그 각 조 2위 팀(비시드 배정)들이 홈앤드어웨이 방식으로 2팀씩 총 2경기씩 치른다. 같은 국가리그 소속팀들은 맞대결하지 아니한다. 거기에서 각 승자들 8팀들이 16강전에 진출한다.
 16강전에서, 8개 각조 1위팀들 8팀이 시드 배정을 받고, 8개 각조 2위팀들 8팀이 비시드 배정 받는다. 시드 팀들은 비시드 팀들과 맞대결하게 되고, 시드팀들은 2차전에서 홈경기를 개최할 것이다. 조별리그에서 같은 조였던 팀들이나 같은 국가리그 소속팀들은 맞대결하지 아니한다.
 8강전부터 모든 팀들은 무작위 대진 추첨될 것이다.

토너먼트 대진

녹아웃라운드 플레이오프 

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16강전 

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8강전 

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준결승전 

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결승전 

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우승

같이 보기 
 2021-22년 UEFA 챔피언스리그
 2021-22년 UEFA 유로파컨퍼런스리그

참조

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UEFA 유로파리그 시즌
UEFA 유로파리그
UEFA 유로파리그
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