(Football news) For the first time, the Europa League will not have a round of 32 as the Champions League third placed teams will play the second placed teams in the Europa League playoffs. Several big teams, including the likes of Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Atalanta and RB Leipzig dropped into this playoff round while several others such as Rangers, Napoli and Lazio joined them as runners-up from the Europa League group stages. The eight winners from this play-off round will go into the UEFA Europa League where eight winners of the Europa League group stages Olympique Lyonnais, AS Monaco, Spartak Moscow, Eintracht Frankfurt, Galatasaray, Crvena Zvezda, Bayer Leverkusen and West Ham United wait for them in the round of 16.
For Barcelona, the Europa League can actually be a blessing in disguise for them as they are currently 8th in the league and are 5 points behind Atletico Madrid in fourth place as winning the Europa League and qualifying for the Champions League looks like the best route. They won’t have it easy as Barca take on Napoli which is going to be notable because of the club's shared history with Diego Maradona, who died just over a year ago and played for both clubs. Napoli last played Barca in the round-of-16 of the Champions League in 2020, with Barca prevailing with a 4-2 victory on aggregate. A lot has changed since then with Xavi Hernandez now in charge of a Lionel Messi-less Barca side that have failed to get out of their Champions League group after 17 consecutive years in the competition.
Dortmund take on the defending Scottish Champions Rangers as they secured progress to the Europa League knockout rounds for the third successive season after defeating Sparta Prague at the Ibrox in Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s first game in charge.The first leg is scheduled to be played in Dortmund on February 17, with the Light Blues at home for the return fixture just one week later on February 24. Rangers have played German opposition 49 times in European competitions with a record of 15 wins, 15 draws and 19 losses. For Dortmund, winning the league looks a bit difficult after losing to Bayern this month as the likes of Marco Reus and Erling Haaland will look to win the Europa League for the first time in their clubs history.
Europa League playoff draw:
- Sevilla vs. Dinamo Zagreb
- Atalanta vs. Olympiacos
- Leipzig vs. Real Sociedad
- Zenit vs. Betis
- Sheriff vs. Braga
- Porto vs. Lazio
