2024-25 Europa League begins today

The brand new 'league phase' that the UEFA Europa League is adopting from this season onwards begins this evening which means now is the time to join our Predictor game if you fancy predicting the scores throughout this year's competition.

36 teams from around the continent are involved in this season's competition, with Manchester United and Tottenham of the Premier League and AS Roma of Serie A among the favourites to go all the way according to the bookmakers.

If you fancy joining our Europa League Predictor game, click here.

Join Europa League Predictor

New format for 2024-25

Just like the Champions League, the Europa League has switched to a single table of 36 teams for a new 'league phase' this season and each club will play 8 different opponents across the 8 league phase rounds.

Usually played on Thursday's, for the opening round of 2024-25 the Europa League is being played across Wednesday (tonight) and Thursday. After that, the vast majority of fixtures are in the usual Thursday slot, which typically makes for challenging schedules as clubs tend to face short turnarounds with these Thursday games usually followed by Sunday league matches.

As a result, the strongest clubs in the competition will want to make sure of a top 8 finish as quickly as possible. The ability to rest players for fixtures later in this league phase would be very welcome, while a top 8 finish ensures a place in the Round of 16 without having to compete in a 2-leg play-off round which is what the teams ranked 9th to 24th will face.

Here are this week's Round 1 fixtures:





As is usually the case, the Premier League clubs are considered the strongest in the tournament, though it's worth noting that it's fairly rare for an English club to actually win the Europa League. Chelsea were the last PL team to win this tournament back in 2019.

Instead, Spanish clubs have been far more successful, winning 9 of the last 15 editions. Sevilla are the main reason for that as they've won a remarkable 5 Europa League titles since 2013, though they can currently only dream of qualifying for UEFA competitions after a tough couple of seasons in LaLiga.

Spain's representatives this year are the big two from the Basque country, Athletic Club and Real Sociedad. Expect both to take this tournament very seriously and compete well as they each boast talented squads.

Download Superbru Football

Who are you expecting to thrive in this year's Europa League? Any dark horses? Good luck in the Predictor game if you're getting involved and enjoy the action! Whether you're playing or not, the Superbru Football app is the place to go to follow live scores and standings.