The Europa League 2013–14 was the 43rd period of Europe’s secondary club football contest organized by UEFA, and the 5th season meanwhile it was renamed from UEFA Cup to UEFA Europa league 2013-14.
The Europa league 2013-14 Final was played among Sevilla and Benfica at Juventus Stadium in Italy, which was acquired by Sevilla on penalties, providing them a record-tying 3rd Europa League title. Chelsea was the title owner but did not protect their title as they are eligible for the Champions League 2013-2014 plus reached the knockout phase.
In the qualifying rounds plus the play-off round, teams were separated into seeded plus unseeded teams founded on their 2013 UEFA club coefficients and then drawn into two-legged home-plus-away ties. Groups from the similar association cannot be drawn alongside each other.
In the knockout stage of Europa league 2013-14 teams played alongside each other above two legs on a home-plus-away basis, excluding for the one-match final.
The mechanism of the draws for every round was as follows:
In the draw for the round of 32, the 12 group winners plus the four third-placed groups from the Champions’ League group phase with the better crowd records were seeded, plus the twelve groups second place and the other 4third-placed teams from the Champions’ League group phase were unseeded. The seeded groups were drawn alongside the unseeded groups, with the seeded groups hosting the 2nd leg. Teams from the similar group or the identical association cannot be drawn against each other.
In the draws for the round of 16 forwards, there was no seeding, and groups from the identical group or the similar association can be drawn against each other.
A total of 62 groups will feature in the draw, to be detained at UEFA’s HQs in Nyon, Switzerland. The groups have been separated into six crowds; five of these will have 10 groups and the sixth would have an additional two.
Each crowd will contain an equivalent number of seeded plus unseeded teams, who would be drawn to face each other in the games. The groups drawn first will play the first leg at home. The games have been arranged for 22 and 29 August. The winners would join the 7 automatic qualifiers – Wigan Athletic, Lazio, Vitoria de Guimaraes, Valencia, SC Freiburg, Bordeaux, and Anzhi Makhachkala in the draw for the group phases.
Frequently derided as a secondary contest to the Champions League, the Europa League shaped some exciting football last period and saw robust performances from 3 Premier League clubs – Spurs prepared it to the quarter-final beforehand bowing out to Swiss champs FC Basel; Newcastle United was beaten by eventual qualifiers Benfica of Portugal; plus Chelsea went all the mode, beating Sparta Prague, Rubin Kazan, Steaua Bucuresti, and Basel on their method to a 2-1 loss of Benfica in Amsterdam in May.
The Blues would be hoping they would not be forced to protect their title though. Jose Mourinho’s menfolk have once again eligible for the Champions League plus barring a second successive disastrous group phase campaign, will perhaps not be at Juventus Stadium in Italy happening on 14 May 2014.
