Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham side will face a bumper 2024/25 schedule as a result of the club qualifying for next season’s Europa League. Missing out on Champions League qualification by two points, Spurs will play in UEFA’s second club competition for the first time since the 2020/21 campaign.
Tottenham will be expected to go far in the Europa League and Postecoglou will be intent on bringing the trophy back to N17 as he looks to achieve his lofty ambitions at the club. Now that the domestic season has come to a close for the vast majority of Europe’s top leagues, next season’s Europa League is starting to take shape with clubs now confirmed to be in the competition.
The Champions League and Europa League will look slightly different from next term onwards as they will no longer operate with 32 teams split into eight groups of four. Instead, there will be 36 teams involved in one big league table.
Clubs will play eight different sides in the league phase, with four games at home and four away. To determine the fixtures for the newly-formed league phase, the teams will be ranked in four seeding pots and each team will then be drawn to play two opponents from each pot.
Manchester United secured a Europa League berth on Saturday as a result of beating fierce rivals Man City 2-1 in the FA Cup final at Wembley. A City win would have seen Chelsea elevated from the Europa Conference League to the Europa League but Erik ten Hag’s men sprung quite the surprise by claiming the famous trophy.
So which other clubs are set to join both Tottenham and Manchester United in the league phase of the 2024/25 Europa League? football.london takes a look below.
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Athletic Bilbao will be hoping to win the Europa League final at their very own San Mames home on Wednesday, May 21 2025. Ernesto Valverde’s side finished the season fifth in La Liga and they also triumphed in the Copa del Rey final as they beat Real Mallorca on penalties.
Basque rivals Real Sociedad join them in the Europa League after beating Real Betis to the final position on offer in Spain. Eintracht Frankfurt and Hoffenheim are Germany’s representatives in next season’s Europa League, although there is still a possibility that Eintracht could be playing Champions League football.
That will be determined on Saturday as a victory for Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final against Real Madrid would see the Bundesliga earn a sixth place in Europe’s premier competition in 2024/25. If that is to be the case, Hoffenheim, who profited from Bayer Leverkusen’s DFB Cup win, would be Germany’s only Europa League representative.
There will be a Rome double in the Europa League from September onwards after both Roma and Lazio qualified for the competition. Fiorentina could possibly make it three Italian teams providing that they beat Olympiacos in Wednesday’s Europa Conference League final.
The Greek side will qualify for the Europa League if they defeat the Florence-based club this week. Ligue 1 sides Nice and Lyon will also feature in the Europa League as will AZ Alkmaar of the Netherlands and Portuguese side Porto.
With the aforementioned sides already guaranteed a place in the Europa League league phase, a host of teams will be looking to join them in the 36-team league come September. Anderlecht, Hearts, LASK, TSC and Besiktas will all enter in the play-off round.
Dutch giants Ajax will be hoping to qualify for the main phase of the competition but they will start their Europa League journey in the second qualifying round. Braga, Cercle Brugge, Kilmarnock, Rapid Wien and Molde are some of the other clubs who will enter the Europa League at the same stage.
Tottenham will find out their league phase opponents when the draw is made on Friday, August 30.
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