There is always a difference between the first and the second.
Europa League, is the abbreviation of Europa League, as the official club competition of UEFA, the Europa League is second only to the Champions League.
However, compared with the predecessor of the League Cup, the Europa League is now much worse than before in terms of the competitive level of the competition itself and the influence of the participating teams, and the third place in the Champions League group will be directly parachuted into the knockout round, which directly lowers the level and quality of the Europa League.
The Europa League format is also a conference system, with a home-and-away double round-robin group stage, where the group ranking is determined by points, and the top two in the group advance to the knockout round, and then there is a home-and-away double round-robin knockout round. Since it is the top two in the group, what is the difference?
Not to mention, the difference is getting bigger and bigger, especially now.
Starting from the 2009 10 season, the 48 participating teams are divided into 12 groups to play, and the top two teams in each group will advance to the knockout stage with the top 8 group winners eliminated from the Champions League, with a total of 32 teams facing off for the first round of the knockout round.
The 12 group winners and runners-up, together with the eight Champions League group runners-up, will be decided by draw. The general breakdown is that the top 12 groups and the 4 best teams are seeded, while the remaining 8 teams with poor results are second and the 8 Champions League eliminated groups are unseeded.
This rule continued until the 2020 21 season, during which there was not much difference between the first and second place in the Europa League group, and they could participate in the knockout stage after qualifying, and they did not have to worry too much about the group position.
But in the 2020 '21 season, this time there was a radical turn. The third place in the Champions League group can also directly qualify for the knockout round, and the third place in the Champions League group often wins the championship with dimensionality reduction in the Europa League, which greatly affects and restricts the level of the Europa League, which is more typical of Sevilla and Atletico Madrid in La Liga.
UEFA is also aware of this problem, and after years of being criticized and criticized, UEFA has created a unique format in the 2020 21 season - the Europa League knockout play-offs, and has reduced the size of the participating teams to 32 teams, exactly 8 groups.
Since it is called the Europa League knockout play-offs, it means that you must win in this to officially qualify for the Europa League knockout rounds, and the teams participating in the Europa League knockout play-offs are the second in the eight groups of the Europa League and the third in the eight groups of the Champions League.
Since then, the difference between the first and second in the Europa League group has been highlighted, and the outcome is far away - with the strength of the second group in the Europa League to face the third in the Champions League group, there is no suspense at all, and the third in the Champions League group is almost guaranteed to advance.
Although it is equivalent to suffering, UEFA has thus whitewashed the status of the third place in the Champions League group to participate in the Europa League, after all, through the hard-fought play-offs to qualify.
The first in the Europa League group can take advantage of the knockout play-offs to recuperate and prepare for the 1 8 finals; The second in the Europa League group can basically go home and fight again next year.