UEFA Europa League and Europa Conference League group draws, as they happened: Man United, Arsenal West Ham and Hearts discover their opponents
Manchester United, Arsenal and West Ham know their fates after the Europa League and Europa Conference League group stage draws
Let's take a look at the Europa League pots first:
Feyenoord (NED)
Rennes (FRA)
PSV Eindhoven (NED)
Monaco (FRA)
Real Sociedad (ESP)
Qarabağ (AZE)
Malmö (SWE)
Ludogorets (BUL)
Sheriff (MDA)
Real Betis (ESP)
Midtjylland (DEN)
Bodø/Glimt (NOR)
Ferencváros (HUN)
Union Berlin (GER)
Freiburg (GER)
Fenerbahçe (TUR)
Nantes (FRA)
HJK Helsinki (FIN)
Sturm Graz (AUT)
AEK Larnaca (CYP)
Omonoia (CYP)
Zürich (SUI)
Saint-Gilloise (BEL)
Trabzonspor (TUR)
There are 32 teams, split into four pots, and they will be drawn into eight groups.
On the subject of Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo could make his first appearances in the Europa League since 2002/03, when he made two appearances in the then-UEFA Cup with Sporting. He didn’t manage a goal in the two-legged tie against Partizan, so he’s still to break his duck there, but he did bag an assist. Take that, Lionel.
What's that? You want to see the only photograph FourFourTwo could source of 17-year-old CR7 (or CR28, as he seemed to be then) playing against Partizan Belgrade in the UEFA Cup?
Dynamo Kyiv are in the Europa League draw after losing to Benfica in the Champions League play-offs.
While domestic Ukrainian football has resumed in spite of Russia’s ongoing invasion, Dynamo will host their European home games in Lodz, Poland.
They’re in Pot 1, so won’t be drawn against Manchester United or Arsenal.
Also in Pot 1 are Jose Mourinho’s Roma, who triumphed in the inaugural Europa Conference League last year – a feat so momentous that the Special One got a permanent reminder of it inked on his arm.
Hey Jose, what's the Italian for "mid-life crisis"?
Remarkably, there are just three former winners of the competition in this afternoon's draw: Manchester United (2017), Feyenoord (1974, 2002) and PSV (1978).
Don't worry, though. Sevilla were drawn in with Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund in yesterday's Champions League group stage draw, so there's every chance they could rock up later to lift the trophy as normal.
The furthest team that Manchester United or Arsenal will have to face would be Qarabag. The Azerbaijan Premier League champions are located in Baku, five and a hours away by air. It’s not that much further to go to New York, is it?
These things really can add up in a compressed season, so it's worth keeping an eye out for...
There might be Brighton interest in today’s Europa League draw. Union Saint-Gilloise’s chairman is Tony Bloom, who also heads the Seagulls. The two sides have a good working relationship, too, with Brighton’s Kacper Kozlowski going on loan there last season and Union’s Denis Undav moving to the Amex in the summer.
The most difficult group for Manchester United and Arsenal? It almost certainly involves either of the two Dutch sides from Pot 2.
Feyenoord and PSV are two of the top three ranked sides in that pot by coefficient, with Feyenoord making the Conference League final last time around. The Premier League giants won’t fancy a trip to the Netherlands, even if it isn't a long journey (see the 11.44 update).
Sheriff Tiraspol and Real Betis are the top-ranked clubs in Pot 3. After the Moldovans shocked Real Madrid in the Champions League last season, Arsenal and United won’t particularly want to shoot the Sheriff, while Betis are well-drilled by former Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini.
Nantes are the standout in the fourth pot.
Here's Real Madrid's own highlights from that Sheriff defeat, for posterity:
The weaker teams in the Europa draw are some of the furthest away – making the best possible outcome for both Arsenal and United a tricky call. Ludogorets are the lowest-ranked side in Pot 2… but wouldn’t the Premier League giants prefer a short-haul hop to Malmo?
Equally, Pot 3’s lowest-ranked Fenerbahce, are both far away and very raucous in home atmosphere. Freiburg or Union Berlin are a little closer and not too much stronger, while the team with the lowest coefficient, Trabzonspor, are also Turkish. Belgians Union Saint-Gilloise are the next weakest side.
This Thursday to Sunday schedule can exhaust you – you can do without the long flights, too.
Arsenal will be thankful for the small mercy of being in the same pot as Olympiacos, a bogey team that they really don’t like facing in Europe.
The Gunners have played the Greeks 12 times since 2009, only winning 50% of those clashes and in 2020, the Attica-based outfit dumped Mikel Arteta out of his first European tournament as manager. Arsenal faced Olympiacos a year later and scraped through, losing their second leg.
Manchester United could well come face to face with an old friend in the form of Ruud van Nistelrooy.
We're not ones to objectify here at FourFourTwo, but... oof, he's looking well, isn't he? Van the Man, indeed.
Luckily for the Red Devils, they can't face former manager Jose Mourinho just yet in the competition. The Special One’s Roma side are the top-ranked team in the draw following their Conference League victory last season.
It's a shame, as we'd love to see him rolling up his sleeve and showing off his new tat in the Old Trafford press room. (See the 11.35 update if you somehow don't know what we're talking about.)
We're just starting off the programme in Istanbul, so we'd expect the draw to start in around 10 minutes – there will inevitably be a bit of chat and introducing the ball-pickers (stop laughing) before we get going proper.
Premier League players who could face former clubs in the Europa League group stage:
Karl-Heinz Korbel, Eintracht Frankfurt legend, is bringing the Europa League trophy onto the stage. Eintracht were last season's winners, beating Rangers 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in Seville.
The final this season will be held in Budapest, Hungary, meaning we have a Hungarian legend along to help with the balls.
It's former West Brom and Fulham man Zoltan Gera! He reached the Europa League final with the Cottagers in 2010.
They're now running through the pots and the rules, explaining how clubs from the same countries are paired to ensure different kick-off times. So one of Manchester United and Arsenal will always have an early kick-off on Thursdays – usually 5.45pm UK time.
Here's the pots again:
Feyenoord (NED)
Rennes (FRA)
PSV Eindhoven (NED)
Monaco (FRA)
Real Sociedad (ESP)
Qarabağ (AZE)
Malmö (SWE)
Ludogorets (BUL)
Sheriff (MDA)
Real Betis (ESP)
Midtjylland (DEN)
Bodø/Glimt (NOR)
Ferencváros (HUN)
Union Berlin (GER)
Freiburg (GER)
Fenerbahçe (TUR)
Nantes (FRA)
HJK Helsinki (FIN)
Sturm Graz (AUT)
AEK Larnaca (CYP)
Omonoia (CYP)
Zürich (SUI)
Saint-Gilloise (BEL)
Trabzonspor (TUR)
Get ready, the draw's starting now!
Arsenal are the first team out of the bowl. They go into Group A.
Dynamo Kyiv are the Pot 1 team in group B.
Jose Mourinho's Roma allocated to Group C.
Manchester United in Group D.
SC Braga go into Group E.
Lazio into Group F.
Olympiacos, Greek champions, into Group G.
Crvena zvezda into Group H.
Starting on Pot 2 now.
These are the Pot 2 teams:
Feyenoord (NED)
Rennes (FRA)
PSV Eindhoven (NED)
Monaco (FRA)
Real Sociedad (ESP)
Qarabağ (AZE)
Malmö (SWE)
Ludogorets (BUL)
Van Nistelrooy's PSV go into Group A against Arsenal!
Rennes
Ludogorets
Malmo
Real Sociedad
Feyenoord
Qarabag
Monaco
Pot 3 about to start. These are the teams:
Sheriff (MDA)
Real Betis (ESP)
Midtjylland (DEN)
Bodø/Glimt (NOR)
Ferencváros (HUN)
Union Berlin (GER)
Freiburg (GER)
Fenerbahçe (TUR)
Bodø/Glimt into Group A:
Bodø/Glimt
Fenerbahce
Real Betis
Sheriff Tiraspol
Midtjylland
Union Berlin
Freiburg
Ferencváros into Group H:
Ferencváros
Pot 4 about to start. here are the teams:
Nantes (FRA)
HJK Helsinki (FIN)
Sturm Graz (AUT)
AEK Larnaca (CYP)
Omonoia (CYP)
Zürich (SUI)
Saint-Gilloise (BEL)
Trabzonspor (TUR)
Bodø/Glimt
FC Zurich
AEK Larnaca
Omonoia
HJK Helsinki
Union Saint-Gilloise
Sturm Graz
Ferencváros
Trabzonspor
Nantes
Here's the full groups for the Europa League 2022/23:
Bodø/Glimt
Ferencváros
And here are the groups in a nicer format. You're welcome.
Let's take a look at the English sides' groups then.
Arsenal have PSV Eindhoven, Bodo/Glimt (just one team, don't worry) and FC Zurich.
While PSV are a decent side, and Bodo/Glimt caused some upsets in the Europa Conference League last season (knocking out Celtic and humbling Roma 6-1 in the group stage), the Gunners at least don't have any long distances to travel.
It's not necessarily easy, but they should finish top without any midweek long-haul flights.
For Man United, it's a little different. Getting to Tiraspol in Moldova takes around three hours by plane (with no direct flights from Manchester for fans running right now), while a trip to Nicosia in Cyprus for the Omonoia away game takes just shy of five hours. Those games will be tough on the legs.
Real Sociedad is closer, but will be a tougher game. United fans may start closely following Newcastle's bid for Sociedad's star man Alexander Isak, however.
Let's turn attention to the Europa Conference League draw.
They are in Pot 1, but there's still a few tricky sides they could be drawn against: Fiorentina (Pot 2), Nice (Pot 3) and Anderlecht (Pot 3) stand out to us.
This will be Unai Emery’s first-ever Europa Conference League campaign. The Basque boss is a master of the second-tier competition, having won four trophies and finished second in 2019 with Arsenal – and now he embarks on the third tier with Villarreal, who are the top-ranked side in this season’s competition.
Also making their debut in the competition this season, Vaduz will become the first club from Liechtenstein to ever play in a UEFA competition group stage.
The tiny nation is the smallest sovereign state ever to have a side in a European group stage. For context of how small the nation is, one story goes that they sent 80 troops to World War I and came back with 81 – since they’d made an Austrian friend who joined up.
The most difficult draw for West Ham, according to the coefficient, at least, would involve drawing Romanian side Cluj, Ligue 1 giants Nice and Dnipro-1, the phoenix club of Dnipro who reached the Europa final in 2015.
Those are the three sides who top Pots 2 to 4 in terms of coefficient – and while Nice isn’t too far to get to from London (Eurotunnel, anyone?) – the other two involve flights to eastern Europe, with Dnipro hosting their European home games in Slovakia, given Russia's assault on eastern Ukraine.
The easiest draw for West Ham? On paper, it’s Slovan Bratislava, Vaduz and Kosovan debutants Ballkani.
A word about Dnipro-1, who rose from the ashes of FC Dnipro and took the Microsoft approach of renaming the club like a successive Word document.
Dnipro-1 are the only Ukrainian side in the Europa Conference League this season, having finished third behind Shakhtar (they’re in the Champions League) and Dynamo Kyiv (the Europa for them). The old Dnipro finished second in 2015’s Europa League to Unai Emery’s Sevilla – who else? – but crashed in 2019 due to financial ruin. Manager Juande Ramos of Tottenham fame was one of those who didn’t receive a paycheck from his employers.
So now, despite some former Dnipro players suggesting Dnipro-1 is a ponzi scheme, the club are back (sort of) and with officially the worst badge in the competition. Seriously.
The presentation is just beginning, with an emotional video tribute to last year's winners, Roma.
There'll be a bit of faffing for a while, so expect the draw proper to start in about 15 minutes.
In the meantime, let's rattle through a few more interesting tidbits.
This is where former Arsenal star Mesut Ozil plays his football now – having fallen out big time with the higher-ups at Fenerbahce – but the mercurial No.10 isn’t the only familiar face on display. Argentinian midfielder Lucas Biglia and former Spurs and West Brom star Nacer Chadli both for the club these days, with Aston Villa forward Bertrand Traore is on loan there.
There may well be interest from Manchester United fans in one of the Europa Conference League sides. Not for the players, nor the manager… but the owner.
Nice have built a stacked squad in Ligue 1, adding Kasper Schmeichel and former Gunners Aaron Ramsey and Nicolas Pepe to the likes of Calvin Stengs, Amine Gouiri and Kasper Dolberg. But the real intrigue from Red Devils supporters will be of owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who’s been proposed as a potential billionaire to save United from the Glazers.
The Ineos founder has developed an impressive outfit on the French Riviera and should Nice have a good tournament, it’ll probably throw more of a spotlight on the contrast between a well-run club and… well, United.
We've got our ball-picker! Volkan Demirel, the former Fenerbahce goalkeeper.
In case you wondered, the best club nickname in the Europa Conference League is AZ’s Kaaskoppen. That translates as “Cheeseheads”.
Here's a blast from the past! Vladimir Smicer just rocked up.
We're about to get going! Here's the pots – we'll start with Pot 1.
Villarreal (ESP)
Basel (SUI)
Slavia Praha (CZE)
AZ Alkmaar (NED)
Gent (BEL)
İstanbul Başakşehir (TUR)
Partizan (SRB)
West Ham (ENG)
CFR Cluj (ROU)
Molde (NOR)
FCSB (ROU)
Fiorentina (ITA)
Köln (GER)
Hapoel Beer-Sheva (ISR)
Apollon Limassol (CYP)
Slovan Bratislava (SVK)
Nice (FRA)
Anderlecht (BEL)
Žalgiris Vilnius (LTU)
Austria Wien (AUT)
Hearts (SCO)
Shamrock Rovers (IRL)
Sivasspor (TUR)
Vaduz (LIE)
Dnipro-1 (UKR)
Lech Poznań (POL)
Slovácko (CZE)
Silkeborg (DEN)
Djurgården (SWE)
Pyunik (ARM)
RFS (LVA)
Ballkani (KOS)
İstanbul Başakşehir go into Group A:
İstanbul Başakşehir (TUR)
West Ham into Group B:
Villarreal into Group C:
AZ Alkmaar into Group E:
Gent into Group F:
Partizan into Group D:
Slavia Praha in Group G:
Basel into Group H:
Now for Pot 2:
CFR Cluj (ROU)
Molde (NOR)
FCSB (ROU)
Fiorentina (ITA)
Köln (GER)
Hapoel Beer-Sheva (ISR)
Apollon Limassol (CYP)
Slovan Bratislava (SVK)
Fiorentina into Group A:
İstanbul Başakşehir (TUR)
FCSB into Group B:
Hapoel Beer-Sheva into Group C:
Cologne into Group D:
Köln (GER)
Apollon Limassol into Group E:
Molde into Group F:
CFR Cluj (ROU)
Slovan Bratislava into Group H:
And now we're ready to divvy out Pot 3. Here are the teams:
Nice (FRA)
Anderlecht (BEL)
Žalgiris Vilnius (LTU)
Austria Wien (AUT)
Hearts (SCO)
Shamrock Rovers (IRL)
Sivasspor (TUR)
Vaduz (LIE)
Hearts into Group A:
İstanbul Başakşehir (TUR)
Vaduz into Group B:
Shamrock Rovers into Group F:
Anderlecht into Group B:
Austria Wien into Group C:
Nice into Group D:
Köln (GER)
Sivasspor in Group G:
Žalgiris Vilnius into Group H:
Žalgiris Vilnius (LTU)
That's Pot 3 out of the way. Here's what Pot 4 holds:
Dnipro-1 (UKR)
Lech Poznań (POL)
Slovácko (CZE)
Silkeborg (DEN)
Djurgården (SWE)
Pyunik (ARM)
RFS (LVA)
Ballkani (KOS)
RFS into Group A:
İstanbul Başakşehir (TUR)
Silkeborg into Group B:
Dnipro-1
into Group E:
Lech Poznań (POL) into Group C:
Lech Poznań (POL)
Djurgården (SWE) into Group F:
Djurgården (SWE)
Ballkani (KOS)
Žalgiris Vilnius (LTU)
Pyunik (ARM)
Slovácko into Group D:
Köln (GER)
Slovácko (CZE)
Here are the Europa Conference League groups for 2022/23 in full:
İstanbul Başakşehir (TUR)
Lech Poznań (POL)
Köln (GER)
Slovácko (CZE)
Djurgården (SWE)
Žalgiris Vilnius (LTU)
What do we make of West Ham's group then? They have trips to FCSB in Romania, Anderlecht in Belgium and Silkeborg in Denmark to contend with.
At least midweek jaunts to Belgium and Denmark won't involve too much travel.
Here are the Europa Conference League groups in one handy graphic:
We'll wrap up the liveblog there – whether you're a Man United, Arsenal, West Ham Hearts, or Shamrock Rovers fan, enjoy your European jaunts this season!
