2021–22 UEFA Europa League#Group stage

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:{{cite web |year=2021 |title=Regulations of the UEFA Europa League, 2021/22 Season |url=https://kassiesa.net/uefa/files/2021-22-uefa-el-rules.pdf |access-date=30 April 2021 |website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations}}

• 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.

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.{{cite web |url=https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/country/#/yr/2020|title=Country coefficients 2019/20 |website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations |year=2020 |access-date=16 February 2020 |archive-date=4 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191204125228/https://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/#/yr/2020 |url-status=live }}

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

• {{small|(UCL)}} – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League

|

|

|}

The following is the access list for this season.{{cite web |url=https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/General/02/58/61/42/2586142_DOWNLOAD.pdf |title=Access list 2021–24 |website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations |access-date=16 February 2020 |archive-date=4 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181204074949/https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/General/02/58/61/42/2586142_DOWNLOAD.pdf |url-status=live }} 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.

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

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

The schedule of the competition was as follows.{{cite news |url=https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/0265-115e8ac3bcf1-d2646a690a85-1000/ |title=2021/22 UEFA Europa League: all you need to know |website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations |date=19 January 2021 |access-date=19 January 2021}} 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.{{cite web |url=https://www.uefa.com/news-media/news/0255-0e99f578e557-a64ea0ed91c9-1000--format-change-for-2020-21-uefa-nations-league/ |title=Format change for 2020/21 UEFA Nations League |website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations |date=24 September 2019 |access-date=17 February 2020 |archive-date=26 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190926223650/https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/about-uefa/news/newsid=2625412.html |url-status=live }}

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.{{cite news |url=https://www.uefa.com/news-media/news/026b-12c542441355-1c2040c5e54b-1000/ |title=Venues appointed for club competition finals |website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations |date=16 July 2021 |access-date=16 July 2021}}

{{main|1=2021–22 UEFA Europa League qualifying phase and play-off round#Third qualifying round|l1=2021–22 UEFA Europa League third qualifying round}}

{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League qualifying phase and play-off round|Q3}}

{{main|1=2021–22 UEFA Europa League qualifying phase and play-off round#Play-off round|l1=2021–22 UEFA Europa League play-off round}}

{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League qualifying phase and play-off round|PO}}

{{main|2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage}}

{{Location map+ |Europe |width=650 |float=right |caption=Location of teams of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage.

8px Brown: Group A; 8px Red: Group B; 8px Orange: Group C; 8px Yellow: Group D;
8px Green: Group E; 8px Blue: Group F; 8px Purple: Group G; 8px Pink: Group H.

|places=

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=43.301378|long=-1.973617|label_size=80|label=Sociedad|mark=Red pog.svg|position=bottom}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=37.356389|long=-5.981389|label_size=80|label=Betis|mark=Purple pog.svg|position=right}}

{{location map~|Europe|lat=52.62028|long=-1.14222|label_size=80|label=Leicester|mark=Orange pog.svg|position=top}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=51.508672|long=-0.117268|label_size=80|label=West Ham|mark=Pink pog.svg|position=left}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=50.116667|long=8.683333|label_size=80|label=Frankfurt|mark=Yellow pog.svg|position=bottom}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=51.033333|long=6.983333|label_size=80|label=Leverkusen|mark=Purple pog.svg|position=right}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=40.82797|long=14.19301|label_size=80|label=Napoli|mark=Orange pog.svg|position=bottom}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=41.82872|long=12.42547|label_size=80|label=Lazio|mark=Green pog.svg|position=top}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=43.7283008|long=7.4147358|label_size=80|label=Monaco|mark=Red pog.svg|position=top}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=45.7578137|long=4.8320114|label_size=80|label=Lyon|mark=Brown pog.svg|position=left}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=43.2961743|long=5.3699525|label_size=80|label=Marseille|mark=Green pog.svg|position=bottom}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=41.5619546|long=-8.4304938|label_size=80|label=Braga|mark=Blue pog.svg|position=top}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=55.45|long=37.37|label_size=80|label=Moscow|mark=Black pog.svg|position=right}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=50.96613|long=5.50082|label_size=80|label=Genk|mark=Pink pog.svg|position=bottom}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=51.232406|long=4.472086|label_size=80|label=Antwerp|mark=Yellow pog.svg|position=left}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=51.441781|long=5.467442|label_size=80|label=PSV|mark=Red pog.svg|position=top}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=40.9915716|long=29.0270173|label_size=80|label=Istanbul|mark=Black pog.svg|position=right}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=48.1945|long=16.2659|label_size=80|label=Rapid|mark=Pink pog.svg|position=left}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=47.046111|long=15.454444|label_size=80|label=Sturm|mark=Red pog.svg|position=left}}

{{location map~|Europe|lat=55.6412644|long=12.4073712|label_size=80||label=Brøndby|mark=Brown pog.svg|position=right}}

{{location map~|Europe|lat=56.116868|long=8.951669|label_size=80||label=Midtjylland|mark=Blue pog.svg|position=left}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=55.860916|long=-4.251433|label_size=80|label=Glasgow|mark=Black pog.svg|position=top}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=50.083333|long=14.416667|label_size=80|label=Sparta|mark=Brown pog.svg|position=right}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=37.946169|long=23.664536|label_size=80|label=Olympiacos|mark=Yellow pog.svg|position=bottom}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=44.770556|long=20.456667|label_size=80|label=Red Star|mark=Blue pog.svg|position=bottom}}

{{location map~ |Europe|lat=45.8207257 |long=16.0039522 |label_size=80||label=Dinamo|mark=Pink pog.svg|position=right}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=43.5347|long=26.5276|label_size=80|label=Ludogorets|mark=Blue pog.svg|position=right}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=52.233333|long=21.016667|label_size=80|label=Legia|mark=Orange pog.svg|position=left}}

{{Location map~|Europe|lat=47.497912|long=19.040235|label_size=80|label=Ferencváros|mark=Purple pog.svg|position=right}}

{{Location map~|Europe|mark=TransparentPlaceholder.png|marksize=1|lat=65|long=55|label_size=80|label=

{{nowrap|Glasgow teams}}

{{nowrap|8px Celtic

8px Rangers}}

{{nowrap|Istanbul teams}}

{{nowrap|8px Fenerbahçe

8px Galatasaray}}

{{nowrap|Moscow teams}}

{{nowrap|8px Lokomotiv Moscow

8px Spartak Moscow}}

|position=right}}

}}

The draw for the group stage was held on 27 August 2021, 12:00 CEST (13:00 TRT), in Istanbul, Turkey.{{cite web|url=https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/draws/2022/2001491/ |title=UEFA Europa League group stage draw |website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations |date=27 August 2021 |access-date=}} 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.{{cite web |url=https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/club/#/yr/2021 |title=Club coefficients 2020/21 |website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations }} 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.{{cite web|url=https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/026c-1318e7c0c923-27868ff00e50-1000--group-stage-draw-pots/|title=Europa League group stage draw pots confirmed|publisher=UEFA|date=27 August 2021}}

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).

{{clear}}

{{:2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage|transcludesection=Group A|show_matches=yes|only_pld_pts=no_hide_class_rules}}

{{:2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage|transcludesection=Group B|show_matches=yes|only_pld_pts=no_hide_class_rules}}

{{:2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage|transcludesection=Group C|show_matches=yes|only_pld_pts=no_hide_class_rules}}

{{:2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage|transcludesection=Group D|show_matches=yes|only_pld_pts=no_hide_class_rules}}

{{:2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage|transcludesection=Group E|show_matches=yes|only_pld_pts=no_hide_class_rules}}

{{:2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage|transcludesection=Group F|show_matches=yes|only_pld_pts=no_hide_class_rules}}

{{:2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage|transcludesection=Group G|show_matches=yes|only_pld_pts=no_hide_class_rules}}

{{:2021–22 UEFA Europa League group stage|transcludesection=Group H|show_matches=yes|only_pld_pts=no_hide_class_rules}}

{{main|2021–22 UEFA Europa League 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.{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League knockout phase|Format}}

{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League knockout phase|Bracket}}

{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League knockout phase|KRP}}

{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League knockout phase|R16}}

{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League knockout phase|QF}}

{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League knockout phase|SF}}

{{#lst:2021–22 UEFA Europa League knockout phase|F}}

Statistics exclude qualifying round and play-off round.

===Team of the season===

The UEFA technical study group selected the following players as the team of the tournament.{{cite news|url=https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/0275-15302e8596b2-af02e3bfb7db-1000--2021-22-uefa-europa-league-team-of-the-season/|title=2021/22 UEFA Europa League Team of the Season|website=UEFA |publisher=Union of European Football Associations |date=20 May 2022 |access-date=20 May 2022}}

• {{flagicon|SRB}} Filip Kostić ({{fbaicon|GER}} Eintracht Frankfurt)

• {{flagicon|GER}} Ansgar Knauff ({{fbaicon|GER}} Eintracht Frankfurt){{cite news|date=20 May 2022|title=Ansgar Knauff named 2021/22 UEFA Europa League Young Player of the Season|url=https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/0275-153031fed697-7ac041aafcd0-1000--ansgar-knauff-named-2021-22-uefa-europa-league-young-player-of-/|access-date=20 May 2022|website=UEFA|publisher=Union of European Football Associations}}

• 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

{{Reflist|group=note}}

{{Reflist}}

{{commons category}}

• {{Official website|https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/}}

{{UEFA Europa League seasons}}

{{2021–22 in European football (UEFA)}}

{{2021–22 European club competitions}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uefa Europa League 2021-22}}

2

2

Category:Sports events affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine

2021