Europa League 2025-26

[ADVILLAFAN]

I want Red Star. Former European Cup winner.

Played Lille recently and Celta 4 times previously.

[TheToffnar]

I say that purely because they're one of the 'better' teams.

[rjp]

I believe we can beat anyone so I base my preference on the away trip and for that reason anyone but Lille.  I've never been to Vigo so would be happy with that.  PAOK could be kettling/queueing for hours again and Belgrade would be interesting but there's also a potential for hassle.

[Somniloquism]

I would argue all four are pretty much equal in terms of how good they are. Whichever team we don't get goes into the other bracket so if you believe Lille is the best of the four (and will win through these matches), then it would be better to send them down the other bracket to fight it out with Lyon.

[Dave]

I say that purely because they're one of the 'better' teams.

So a tie against the team they are playing would be even better then, no?

[TheToffnar]

I say that purely because they're one of the 'better' teams.

So a tie against the team they are playing would be even better then, no?

Got to be honest, don't quite know what my point was here...

[AV82EC]

Funnily enough I’m less concerned about Lille, probably incorrectly, but I don’t think they’re the team they were 2 seasons ago. Whilst Red Star and PAOK would be tough away games (like Fenerbache) think we’d beat them both at home. The unknown factor for me is Celta. Think we would win out but a tough tie.

[TheToffnar]

Excuse my ignorance, but how does the overall spread of results in the playoffs effect who they play from automatic qualification? Is there a metric where by we play the lowest seeded team because of our high finishing position, or is it just a random draw after the fact?

[Mellin]

They are paired off by position, so highest plays lowest and so on. Us and Lyon take the middle cluster.

[Somniloquism]

The theory is the "seeded" top half of the play-off teams will beat the "unseeded" lower half. So when it comes to us playing again, the teams in 15/16th will be the lowest finishing teams left. If we get into the QFs, the next matches for 1-2 will be the winners of the teams playing the 7th/8th positions, so we could be playing Freiburg or Roma (or whichever team beats them from Zagreb v Genk or Brann v Bolgna).

We will know our exact (and potential future) opponents next Friday at 1300 when the rest of the brackets are filled in.

[eamonn]

Anyone keeping an eye on the games this evening have a sense as to who might be trickier between Celta and Red Star?

[AV82EC]

Anyone keeping an eye on the games this evening have a sense as to who might be trickier between Celta and Red Star?

Red Star probably edged it as Lille were slightly better opposition than PAOK. Red Star could easily have had 2 or 3 tonight, they were at least as wasteful in front of goal as your usual Villa performance.