European League

The former UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Cup is now called the Europa League due to the competition’s name change to attract the interest of the bigger teams. The last edition of the old structure was the 2008-2009 season, won by Romanian coach Mircea Lucescu with his Ukrainian team Shaktar Donetsk.

A total of 192 teams from 53 UEFA associations are expected to take part in the 2009-2010 UEFA Europa League season. Each country/association will send a number of teams according to their UEFA coefficient. The main countries are England, Spain and Italy, each with three team places, followed by Germany and France, each with 3 teams.

The only difference between the first 3 and these 2 are the UEFA Champions League places.
It is worth mentioning that the current cup champions, Shaktar Donetsk, have a guaranteed place in the group stage, even if they are not in the right position in the league of their country, “The Premier League of Ukraine”.

In addition, the top three associations in the 2008-2009 UEFA Fair Play ranking (Norway, Denmark, Scotland) each get an additional place.

The distribution is as follows:
1) First qualifying round (46 teams)
2) Second qualifying round (80 teams)
3) Third qualifying round (70 teams)
4) Play-off round (76 teams)
5) Group stage (48 teams)
6) Knockout stage (32 teams)

It is worth mentioning that also the prize money increased once with the rebranding process and the new competition also got a new identity logo. The Europa League final will be played in Germany, Arena Hamburg on May 12, 2010