The 2020–21 UEFA Europa League group stage began on 22 October 2020 and ended on 10 December 2020. A total of 48 teams competed in the group stage to decide 24 of the 32 places in the knockout phase of the 2020–21 UEFA Europa League.
Antwerp, Granada, Leicester City, Omonia and Sivasspor made their debut appearances in the group stage.
Draw The draw for the group stage was held on 2 October 2020, 13:00 CEST, at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland.
In the case of associations with two or more representatives, clubs could be paired so that they played with different kick-off times (18.55 CET and 21:00 CET) for the benefit of TV audiences. If a paired club was drawn, for example, in groups A, B, C, D, E or F the other paired club – once drawn – would automatically be assigned to the first available group of G, H, I, J, K or L. The following pairings were announced by UEFA after the group stage teams were confirmed:
On each matchday, one set of six groups played their matches at 18:55 CET/CEST, while the other set of six groups played their matches at 21:00 CET/CEST, with the two sets of groups alternating between each matchday. The fixtures were decided after the draw, using a computer draw not shown to public, with the following match sequence (Regulations Article 15.02):
On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries.
+Group stage scheduleMatchdayDatesMatchday 122 October 2020Matchday 229 October 2020Matchday 35 November 2020Matchday 426 November 2020Matchday 53 December 2020Matchday 610 December 2020
There were scheduling restrictions: for example, teams from the same city (e.g. Celtic & Rangers, Arsenal & Tottenham Hotspur, Sparta Prague & Slavia Prague) in general were not scheduled to play at home on the same matchday (to avoid them playing at home on the same day, due to logistics and crowd control), and teams from "winter countries" (e.g. Russia) were not scheduled to play at home on the last matchday (due to cold weather).
Teams Below were the participating teams (with their 2020 UEFA club coefficients), grouped by their seeding pot. They included: 18 teams which entered in the group stage 21 winners of the play-off round (8 from Champions Path, 13 from Main Path) 6 losers of the Champions League play-off round (4 from Champions Path, 2 from League Path) 3 League Path losers of the Champions League third qualifying round Key to coloursGroup winners and runners-up advanced to round of 32 +Pot 1TeamNotes Arsenal91.000 Tottenham Hotspur85.000 Roma80.000 Napoli77.000 Benfica70.000 Bayer Leverkusen61.000 Villarreal56.000 CSKA Moscow44.000 Braga41.000 Gent39.500 PSV Eindhoven37.000 Celtic34.000+Pot 2TeamNotes Dinamo Zagreb33.500 Sparta Prague30.500 Slavia Prague27.500 Ludogorets Razgrad26.000 Young Boys25.500 Red Star Belgrade22.750 Rapid Wien22.000 Leicester City22.000 PAOK21.000 Qarabağ 21.000 Standard Liège20.500 Real Sociedad20.456+Pot 3TeamNotes Granada20.456 Milan19.000 AZ18.500 Feyenoord17.000 Maccabi Tel Aviv16.500 AEK Athens16.500 Rangers16.250 Molde15.000 TSG Hoffenheim14.956 Hapoel Be'er Sheva14.000 LASK14.000 CFR Cluj12.500+Pot 4TeamNotes Zorya Luhansk12.500 Nice11.849 Lille11.849 Rijeka11.000 Dundalk 8.500 Slovan Liberec 8.000 Antwerp 7.580 Lech Poznań 7.000 Sivasspor 6.720 Wolfsberger AC 6.585 Omonia 5.350 CSKA Sofia 4.000 Notes
Format In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advanced to the round of 32, where they were joined by the eight third-placed teams of the Champions League group stage.
Tiebreakers Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 16.01): Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams; Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams; Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams; Goal difference in all group matches; Goals scored in all group matches; Away goals scored in all group matches; Wins in all group matches; Away wins in all group matches; Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points); UEFA club coefficient.
Groups The group stage fixtures were confirmed on 2 October 2020. The matchdays were 22 October, 29 October, 5 November, 26 November, 3 December, and 10 December 2020. The scheduled kickoff times were 18:55 and 21:00 CET/CEST.
Times are CET/CEST, as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Group G
Group H
Group I
Group J
Group K
Group L
Notes
References
External links
Fixtures and Results, 2020–21, UEFA.com