2017–18 UEFA Europa League
The 2017–18 UEFA Europa League was the 47th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 9th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. The final was played at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais in Décines-Charpieu, France. Atlético Madrid defeated Marseille to win their third Europa League title. As winners, Atlético Madrid earned the right to play against the winners of the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League, Real Madrid, in the 2018 UEFA Super Cup. Moreover, they would also have been automatically qualified for the  2018–19 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 2017–18 Ligue 1, the fifth-ranked association according to next season's access list. Manchester United qualified for the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League as the title holders of Europa League. They were unable to defend their title as they qualified for the Champions League knockout phase, and were eliminated by Sevilla in the round of 16. Association team allocation. A total of 190 teams from all 55 UEFA member associations participated in  the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association: Starting from this season, Gibraltar were granted two spots instead of one in the Europa League. Kosovo, who became a UEFA member on 3 May 2016, made their debut in the UEFA Europa League. Association ranking. For the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2016 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2011–12 to 2015–16. Apart from the allocation based on the  country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below: Distribution. In the default access list, Manchester United entered the group stage (as the sixth-placed team of the 2016–17 Premier League). However, since they qualified for the Champions League as the Europa League title holders, the spot which they qualified for in the Europa League group stage was vacated, and the following changes to the default allocation system were made: Redistribution rules. A Europa League place was vacated when a team qualified for both the Champions League and the Europa League, or qualified for  the Europa League by more than one method. When a place was vacated, it was redistributed within the national association by the following rules (regulations Articles 3.03 and 3.04): Teams. The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round: Notably two teams took part in the competition that were not playing in their national top division, Tirana (2nd tier) and Vaduz (representing Liechtenstein, playing in Swiss second tier). Round and draw dates. The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless  stated otherwise). Matches in the qualifying, play-off, and knockout rounds could also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts. Qualifying rounds. In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams are divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2017 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association cannot be drawn against each other. Group stage. The draw for the group stage was held on 25 August 2017, 13:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The 48  teams were 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 were seeded into four pots based on their 2017 UEFA club coefficients. 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 2017–18 UEFA Champions League group stage. The matchdays were 14 September, 28 September, 19 October, 2 November, 23 November , and 7 December 2017. A total of 29 national associations were represented in the group stage. Arsenal, Atalanta, Fastav Zlín, 1899 Hoffenheim, İstanbul Başakşehir, 1. FC Köln, Lugano, Milan, Östersund, Real Sociedad, Red Star Belgrade, Vardar and Vitesse made their debut appearances in the UEFA Europa League group stage (although Milan and Red Star Belgrade had appeared in the UEFA Cup group stage). Vardar were the first team from Macedonia to play in either the Champions League or Europa League group stage. 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. The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows: Statistics. Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round. Squad of the season. The UEFA technical study group selected the following 18 players as the squad of the tournament. Player of the season. Votes were cast by coaches of the 48 teams in the group stage, together with 55 journalists selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) group, representing each of UEFA's member associations. The coaches were not allowed to vote for players from their own teams. Jury members selected  their top three players, with the first receiving five points, the second three and the third one. The shortlist of the top three players was announced on 9 August 2018. The award winner was announced during the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League group stage draw in Monaco on 31 August 2018.