2018–19 UEFA Europa League group stage

The 2018–19 UEFA Europa League group stage began on 20 September and ended on 13 December 2018.^[1] A total of 48 teams competed in the group stage to decide 24 of the 32 places in the knockout phase of the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League.^[2]

Draw[edit]

The draw for the group stage was held on 31 August 2018, 13:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.^[3]

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 2018 UEFA club coefficients.^[4]

On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries.^[5]

Moreover, the draw was controlled for teams from the same association in order to split the teams evenly into the two sets of six groups (A–F, G–L) for maximum television coverage. On each matchday, one set of six groups played their matches at 18:55 CET/CEST, while the other set of six groups played their matches at 21:00 CET/CEST, with the two sets of groups alternating between each matchday. The following pairings were announced by UEFA after the group stage teams were confirmed:^[3][6]

The fixtures were decided after the draw, using a computer draw not shown to public, with the following match sequence (Regulations Article 15.02):^[2]

Note: Positions for scheduling do not use the seeding pots, e.g., Team 1 is not necessarily the team from Pot 1 in the draw.

Group stage schedule

Matchday	Date	Matches
Matchday 1	20 September 2018	2 v 3, 4 v 1
Matchday 2	4 October 2018	1 v 2, 3 v 4
Matchday 3	25 October 2018	3 v 1, 2 v 4
Matchday 4	8 November 2018	1 v 3, 4 v 2
Matchday 5	29 November 2018	3 v 2, 1 v 4
Matchday 6	13 December 2018	2 v 1, 4 v 3

There were scheduling restrictions: for example, teams from the same city (e.g., Arsenal and Chelsea) in general were not scheduled to play at home on the same matchday (to avoid them playing at home on the same day, due to logistics and crowd control), and teams from "winter countries" (e.g., Russia) were not scheduled to play at home on the last matchday (due to cold weather).

Teams[edit]

Below were the participating teams (with their 2018 UEFA club coefficients),^[4] grouped by their seeding pot. They included:

• 17 teams which entered in the group stage
• 21 winners of the play-off round (8 from Champions Path, 13 from Main Path)
• 6 losers of the Champions League play-off round (4 from Champions Path, 2 from League Path)
• 4 League Path losers of the Champions League third qualifying round

Key to colours
Group winners and runners-up advanced to round of 32

Pot 1 Team Notes Coeff.[4] Sevilla [EL-MP] 113.000 Arsenal 93.000 Chelsea 82.000 Zenit Saint Petersburg [EL-MP] 78.000 Bayer Leverkusen 66.000 Dynamo Kyiv [CL-LP] 62.000 Beşiktaş [EL-MP] 57.000 Red Bull Salzburg [CL-CP] 55.500 Olympiacos [EL-MP] 54.000 Villarreal 52.000 Anderlecht 48.000 Lazio 41.000

Pot 2 Team Notes Coeff.[4] Sporting CP 40.000 Ludogorets Razgrad [EL-CP] 37.000 Copenhagen [EL-MP] 34.000 Marseille 32.000 Celtic [EL-CP] 31.000 PAOK [CL-LP] 29.500 Milan 28.000 Genk [EL-MP] 27.000 Fenerbahçe [CL-LQ] 23.500 Krasnodar 23.500 Astana [EL-CP] 21.750 Rapid Wien [EL-MP] 21.500

Pot 3 Team Notes Coeff.[4] Real Betis 21.399 Qarabağ [EL-CP] 20.500 BATE Borisov [CL-CP] 20.500 Dinamo Zagreb [CL-CP] 17.500 RB Leipzig [EL-MP] 17.000 Eintracht Frankfurt 14.285 Malmö FF [EL-CP] 14.000 Spartak Moscow [CL-LQ] 13.500 Standard Liège [CL-LQ] 12.500 Zürich 12.000 Bordeaux [EL-MP] 11.283 Rennes 11.283

Pot 4 Team Notes Coeff.[4] Apollon Limassol [EL-MP] 10.000 Rosenborg [EL-CP] 9.000 Vorskla Poltava 8.226 Slavia Prague [CL-LQ] 7.500 Akhisarspor 7.160 Jablonec 6.035 AEK Larnaca [EL-MP] 4.310 Vidi [CL-CP] 4.250 Rangers [EL-MP] 3.725 F91 Dudelange [EL-CP] 3.500 Spartak Trnava [EL-CP] 3.500 Sarpsborg 08 [EL-MP] 3.485

Notes

Format[edit]

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 Champions League group stage.

Tiebreakers[edit]

Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 16.01):^[2]

1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
4. Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
5. If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
6. Goal difference in all group matches;
7. Goals scored in all group matches;
8. Away goals scored in all group matches;
9. Wins in all group matches;
10. Away wins in all group matches;
11. Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
12. UEFA club coefficient.

Groups[edit]

The matchdays were 20 September, 4 October, 25 October, 8 November, 29 November, and 13 December 2018. The scheduled kickoff times were 18:55 and 21:00 CET/CEST, except for a few matches whose kickoff times were 16:50 CET/CEST.^[7]

Times are CET/CEST,^{[note 1]} as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Group A[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		LEV	ZUR	AKL	LUD
1	Bayer Leverkusen	6	4	1	1	16	9	+7	13	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–0	4–2	1–1
2	Zürich	6	3	1	2	7	6	+1	10			3–2	—	1–2	1–0
3	AEK Larnaca	6	1	2	3	6	12	−6	5			1–5	0–1	—	1–1
4	Ludogorets Razgrad	6	0	4	2	5	7	−2	4			2–3	1–1	0–0	—

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Group B[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		SAL	CEL	RBL	ROS
1	Red Bull Salzburg	6	6	0	0	17	6	+11	18	Advance to knockout phase		—	3–1	1–0	3–0
2	Celtic	6	3	0	3	6	8	−2	9			1–2	—	2–1	1–0
3	RB Leipzig	6	2	1	3	9	8	+1	7			2–3	2–0	—	1–1
4	Rosenborg	6	0	1	5	4	14	−10	1			2–5	0–1	1–3	—

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Group C[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		ZEN	SLP	BOR	KOB
1	Zenit Saint Petersburg	6	3	2	1	6	5	+1	11	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–0	2–1	1–0
2	Slavia Prague	6	3	1	2	4	3	+1	10			2–0	—	1–0	0–0
3	Bordeaux	6	2	1	3	6	6	0	7			1–1	2–0	—	1–2
4	Copenhagen	6	1	2	3	3	5	−2	5			1–1	0–1	0–1	—

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Group D[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		DZG	FEN	SPT	AND
1	Dinamo Zagreb	6	4	2	0	11	3	+8	14	Advance to knockout phase		—	4–1	3–1	0–0
2	Fenerbahçe	6	2	2	2	7	7	0	8			0–0	—	2–0	2–0
3	Spartak Trnava	6	2	1	3	4	7	−3	7			1–2	1–0	—	1–0
4	Anderlecht	6	0	3	3	2	7	−5	3			0–2	2–2	0–0	—

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Group E[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		ARS	SPO	VOR	QRB
1	Arsenal	6	5	1	0	12	2	+10	16	Advance to knockout phase		—	0–0	4–2	1–0
2	Sporting CP	6	4	1	1	13	3	+10	13			0–1	—	3–0	2–0
3	Vorskla Poltava	6	1	0	5	4	13	−9	3[a]			0–3	1–2	—	0–1
4	Qarabağ	6	1	0	5	2	13	−11	3[a]			0–3	1–6	0–1	—

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Group F[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		BET	OLY	MIL	DUD
1	Real Betis	6	3	3	0	7	2	+5	12	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–0	1–1	3–0
2	Olympiacos	6	3	1	2	11	6	+5	10[a]			0–0	—	3–1	5–1
3	Milan	6	3	1	2	12	9	+3	10[a]			1–2	3–1	—	5–2
4	F91 Dudelange	6	0	1	5	3	16	−13	1			0–0	0–2	0–1	—

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Group G[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		VIL	RW	RAN	SPM
1	Villarreal	6	2	4	0	12	5	+7	10[a]	Advance to knockout phase		—	5–0	2–2	2–0
2	Rapid Wien	6	3	1	2	6	9	−3	10[a]			0–0	—	1–0	2–0
3	Rangers	6	1	3	2	8	8	0	6			0–0	3–1	—	0–0
4	Spartak Moscow	6	1	2	3	8	12	−4	5			3–3	1–2	4–3	—

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Group H[edit]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		FRA	LAZ	APL	MAR
1	Eintracht Frankfurt	6	6	0	0	17	5	+12	18	Advance to knockout phase		—	4–1	2–0	4–0
2