Europa League Format Can Be Improved Further Despite Champions League Incentive

The Europa League enters a new era on Thursday, as the 48 teams in the group stage of the competition begin their pursuit of a trophy that, for the first time, comes attached with an even greater prize.

The winner of next May’s final will also be granted automatic entry into the following season’s Champions League, and the riches and glamour that the competition offers.

For the majority of the more regular Europa League entrants, invariably used to life in the veritable purgatory of the “second tier” of their domestic leagues, it offers a new and realistic avenue to that holy grail, the Champions League group stages.

The place is automatic, bar the unlikely scenario that the Champions League winner that year is not otherwise qualified for the next season, in which case the Europa League winner will go into the final play-off round.

For so long the competition, which requires teams to play 15 games (many of them often in far-flung corners of Europe) in order to win it, seemed to be more trouble than it was worth for some of its participants, with the poor record of English teams (who should in theory be among the strongest contenders) particularly egregious.

With the Europa League hardly as prestigious or as lucrative as its big brother, many teams did little to conceal their prioritising of domestic competition.

Now, however, there is an added incentive for all those trips to foreign outposts, and the Thursday-Sunday-Thursday scheduling that inevitably ensues. The result could be eventual Champions League participation—the dream of all ambitious European sides.

Indeed, 10 of the 48 teams in this year's group stages arrive on the back of failed Champions League qualification bids—they know acutely how tough it can be to get in.

The introduction of Champions League qualification as a prize was designed to have two main benefits: to enhance the prestige of the competition (and thus the seriousness with which its participants treat it) but also to offer a chance for some new teams to grace UEFA’s crowning jewel.

In the latter aim, it remains to be seen if the move is as successful as the re-formatting of the Champions League’s play-off system—the introduction of a new “champions” route that has allowed the likes of Ludogorets Razgrad and Maribor to reach the group stages this season—or if, like those changes, its consequences only raise further issues and controversies.

The presence of some less renowned champions has already led to concerns the group stages of UEFA’s main competition are no longer competitive and that the priority given to champions of less prestigious leagues has diluted the competition’s first round and made it easier for the heavyweights—Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich—to reach the knockout stages.

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Of course, the cynics will suggest this is exactly what UEFA want—the knockout rounds being filled with recognisable names likely to be a brilliant outcome for television viewing figures and, as a result, competition revenues.

Nevertheless, the presence of some new faces has only weakened the overall product, goes the argument, even if Tuesday’s narrow game between Liverpool and the aforementioned Ludogorets suggests that might be completely accurate.

Similarly, however, the carrot of Champions League qualification for the Europa League winner may not work out as expected. In the end, it might just be regular Champions League teams who win the competition anyway, many of whom will not benefit from the prize having already qualified through their domestic league.

After all, in its current format, the eight third-placed teams from the Champions League group stages all drop into the Europa League at the last-32 stage, with four of them also getting priority seeding in the draw.

Last season, for example, that meant Champions League failures Benfica and Juventus were "rewarded" with last-32 ties against PAOK and Trabzonspor, ending the hopes of two teams who had gone through the laborious group-stage process only to be confronted with a team they would rarely beat over two legs.

The upshot of that is that, per Infostrada’s Euro Club Index Stats, Manchester City are actually the fourth most likely side to win the whole thing this season. City get their Champions League campaign underway against Bayern Munich on Wednesday evening.

City are so favoured because they are in a tough Champions League group that also contains Bayern and Roma. Whoever comes third out of that trio, and drops down a tier, will be expected to contend strongly in the Europa League.

The three teams favoured above City to win the competition are at least in it from the start: Tottenham, Napoli and (reigning champions) Sevilla. All three have played in the Champions League in the last decade, however, although qualifying for it in recent times has proven a tougher proposition.

It is those teams the new incentive is designed to benefit, although it remains to be seen if those clubs falling down from the Champions League are similarly galvanised, if not more so.

Ideally what UEFA would want is a repeat of Sevilla's win last season, as the club fought through the Europa League qualification rounds before going all the way to glory. It is equally likely, however, that a former Champions League side goes all the way, as Chelsea did in beating Benfica in 2013.

Benfica were also the losing finalists a year later, as Sevilla enjoyed a third victory in the competition. On both runs, the Portuguese club had come into the competition from the Champions League.

A further tweak to the format might be needed, then, with the eight “relegated” Champions League sides perhaps drawn to face each other in the last 32 of the tournament, perhaps also going to play one another again in the last 16 (in that way, two former Champions League sides will be in the quarter-finals of the Europa League, a reasonably palatable ratio).

That amendment would also align with the aims UEFA have, with teams more likely to give the competition their best shot if they know they will not simply be drawn against a Manchester City or a Roma as soon as the knockout stages kick off.

That is something for UEFA to evaluate over the next few seasons, perhaps. Improvements can still be made, but for now, the Europa League figures to be a greater priority for those participants who have found another route into the Champions League an infuriating proposition.