2018–19 UEFA Europa League

The **2018–19 UEFA Europa League** will be the 48th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 10th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the **UEFA Europa League**.

The final was played at the Olympic Stadium in Baku, Azerbaijan, between English sides Chelsea and Arsenal — which was the first Europa League final to feature two teams from one city. As winners, Chelsea will play against the winners of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League in the 2019 UEFA Super Cup. And they would also have been qualified for the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League group stage, but since they had already qualified through their league performance, the berth reserved was given to the third-placed team of the 2018–19 Ligue 1, the 5th-ranked association according to next season's access list.

## Format changes

On 9 December 2016, UEFA confirmed the changing of plans for the UEFA Champions League for the 2018–2021 cycle, which was announced on 26 August 2016. As per new rules, all teams that are eliminated in the UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds will get a second chance in the Europa League.

## Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows.

|Phase|Round|Draw date|First leg|Second leg|||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|Preliminary|Preliminary round|12 June 2018|28 June 2018|5 July 2018|||
|rowspan=3|Qualifying|First qualifying round|rowspan=2|19 June 2018|12 July 2018|19 July 2018|
|Second qualifying round|26 July 2018|2 August 2018|||||
|Third qualifying round|23 July 2018|9 August 2018|16 August 2018||||
|Play-off|Play-off round|6 August 2018|23 August 2018|30 August 2018|||
|rowspan=6|Group stage|Matchday 1|rowspan=6|31 August 2018 (Monaco)|colspan=2|20 September 2018|
|Matchday 2|colspan=2|4 October 2018|||||
|Matchday 3|colspan=2|25 October 2018|||||
|Matchday 4|colspan=2|8 November 2018|||||
|Matchday 5|colspan=2|29 November 2018|||||
|Matchday 6|colspan=2|13 December 2018|||||
|rowspan=5|Knockout phase|Round of 32|17 December 2018|14 February 2019|21 February 2019||
|Round of 16|22 February 2019|7 March 2019|14 March 2019||||
|Quarter-finals|15 March 2019|11 April 2019|18 April 2019||||
|Semi-finals|rowspan=2|19 April 2019|2 May 2019|9 May 2019|||
|Final|colspan=2|29 May 2019 at Olympic Stadium, Baku|||||

Matches in the qualifying (including preliminary and play-off) and knockout rounds may also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts.

## Group stage

The draw for the group stage will be held on 31 August 2018 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The 48 teams are drawn into twelve groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association cannot be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams are seeded into four pots based on their 2018 UEFA club coefficients.

In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the round of 32, where they are joined by the eight third-placed teams of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League group stage. The matchdays are 20 September, 4 October, 25 October, 8 November, 29 November, and 13 December 2018.

A total of 48 teams play in the group stage: 17 teams which enter in this stage, the 21 winners of the play-off round (eight from Champions Path, thirteen from Main Path), the six losers of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League play-off round (four from Champions Path, two from League Path), and the four League Path losers of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round.

- Arsenal _CC: 93.000_
- Chelsea _CC: 82.000_
- Bayer Leverkusen _CC: 66.000_
- Villarreal _CC: 52.000_
- Anderlecht _CC: 48.000_
- Lazio _CC: 41.000_
- Sporting CP _CC: 40.000_
- Marseille _CC: 32.000_
- Milan _CC: 28.000_
- Krasnodar _CC: 23.500_
- Real Betis _CC: TBD (21.342)_
- Eintracht Frankfurt _CC: 14.285_
- Rennes _CC: 11.283_
- Vorskla Poltava _CC: 8.226_
- _Slavia Prague_ _CC: 7.500_ or third-placed team of 2017–18 Czech First League
- Akhisar Belediyespor _CC: 7.160_
- Winners of 2017–18 Swiss Cup

## Knockout phase

In the knockout phase, teams play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

### Round of 32

The draw for the round of 32 was held on 17 December 2018. The first legs were played on 12 and 14 February, and the second legs were played on 20 and 21 February 2019.

### Round of 16

The draw for the round of 16 was held on 22 February 2019. The first legs were played on 7 March, and the second legs were played on 14 March 2019.

### Quarter-finals

The draw for the quarter-finals was held on 15 March 2019. The first legs were played on 11 April, the second legs were played on 18 April 2019.

### Semi-finals

The draw for the semi-finals was held on 15 March 2019 (after the quarter-final draw). The first legs were played on 2 May, and the second legs were played on 9 May 2019.

### Final

The final was held on 29 May 2019 at the Olympic Stadium in Baku. The "home" team (for administrative purposes) was determined by an additional draw held after the quarter-final and semi-final draws.

## Infobox (international football competition)

- **tourney name**: UEFA Europa League
- **year**: 2018–19
- **image**: Baku Olympic Stadium panorama 1.JPG
- **size**: 275
- **caption**: The Baku Olympic Stadium, Olympic Stadium in Baku hosted the final
- **dates**: _Qualifying:_
26 June – 30 August 2018
_Competition proper:_
20 September 2018 – 29 May 2019
- **num teams**: _Competition proper:_ 48_+8_
_Total:_ 158_+55_
- **associations**: 55
- **champion other**: Chelsea F.C., Chelsea
- **count**: 2
- **second other**: Arsenal F.C., Arsenal
- **matches**: 205
- **goals**: 565
- **top scorer**: Olivier Giroud (11 goals)
- **prevseason**: 2017–18 UEFA Europa League, 2017–18
- **nextseason**: _2019–20 UEFA Europa League, 2019–20_