2019–20 UEFA Europa League
The 2019–20 UEFA Europa League was the 49th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 11th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. Sevilla defeated Inter Milan in the final, played at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, Germany, 3–2 for a record sixth title in the competition. As winners, Sevilla earned the right to play against Bayern Munich, the winners of the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League, in the 2020 UEFA Super Cup. Since they had already qualified for the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League group  stage through their league performance, the berth originally reserved for the Europa League title holders was given to the third-placed team of the 2019–20 Ligue 1 (Rennes), the 5th-ranked association according to next season's access list. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament was suspended in mid-March 2020 and resumed in August. The quarter-finals onwards were played as a single match knockout ties at neutral venues in Germany (RheinEnergieStadion, MSV-Arena, Merkur Spiel-Arena, Arena AufSchalke) behind closed doors from 10 to 21 August. The video assistant referee (VAR) system was used  in the competition from the knockout stage onwards. As the title holders of the Europa League, Chelsea qualified for the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League, although they had already qualified before the final through their league performance. They were unable to defend their title as they advanced to the Champions League knockout stage, and were eliminated by the ultimate winners Bayern Munich in the round of 16. Association team allocation. A total of 213 teams from all 55 UEFA member associations participated in the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine  the number of participating teams for each association: Association ranking. For the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2018 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2013–14 to 2017–18. Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below: Distribution. The following is the access list for this season. Changes were made to the default access list, if any of the teams that qualified for the Europa League via their domestic competitions also qualified for the  Champions League as the Champions League or Europa League title holders, or if there were fewer teams transferred from the Champions League due to changes in the Champions League access list. In any case where a spot in the Europa League was vacated, cup winners of the highest-ranked associations in earlier rounds were promoted accordingly. 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: Teams. The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round: One team not playing a national top division took part in the competition; Vaduz (representing Liechtenstein) played in 2019–20 Swiss Challenge League, which is Switzerland's 2nd 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 could also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts. The competition was suspended on 17  March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. A working group was set up by UEFA to decide the calendar of the remainder of the season. On 17 June 2020, UEFA announced the revised schedule for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final of the competition, to be played in single-leg matches. The original schedule of the competition, as planned before the pandemic, was as follows. Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the varying rates of transmission of COVID-19 across European countries during the time of the Round of 16 first leg ties, different matches were affected  in different ways. Because of this severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy at the time, the games involving Inter Milan and A.S. Roma were postponed, whereas games hosted in Greece, Germany, and Austria went ahead but behind closed doors. Games hosted in Turkey and Scotland went ahead as normal. On 15 March, UEFA announced that none of the Round of 16 second leg ties would go ahead in the following week, postponing them indefinitely, with a taskforce convened to reschedule the rest of the season. On 23 March, it was announced that the Stadion Energa Gdańsk in Gdańsk, Poland  would no longer host the competition Final, originally scheduled for 27 May, but would host the 2021 Final instead. On 17 June it was announced that the Europa League would return on 5 August and conclude on 21 August, with a last-eight tournament to be held across four venues in Germany. The remainder of the competition would be played in a mini-tournament style with remaining fixture to be played as single legged ties except for the Round of 16 fixtures where the first leg had already been played. All remaining ties of the competition were played behind closed  doors due to the remaining presence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. Preliminary round. In the preliminary round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2019 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. Qualifying rounds. In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2019 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association could not be drawn  against each other. Second qualifying round. The second qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path (for league champions) and League Path (for cup winners and league non-champions). Third qualifying round. The third qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path (for league champions) and League Path (for cup winners and league non-champions). Play-off round. The play-off round was split into two separate sections: Champions Path (for league champions) and League Path (for cup winners and league non-champions). Group stage. The draw for the group stage was held on 30 August  2019, 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 could not be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on their 2019 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 2019–20 UEFA Champions League group stage. The matchdays  were 19 September, 3 October, 24 October, 7 November, 28 November, and 12 December 2019. A total of 26 national associations were represented in the group stage. Espanyol, Ferencváros, LASK, Oleksandriya, Wolfsberger AC and Wolverhampton Wanderers made their debut appearances in the group stage (although Espanyol and Ferencváros had appeared in the UEFA Cup 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. Statistics. Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round. Top goalscorers. Notes Squad of the season. The UEFA  technical study group selected the following 23 players as the squad of the tournament. Notes 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 17 September 2020. The award winner  was announced during the 2020–21 UEFA Europa League group stage draw in Switzerland on 2 October 2020. Notes