UEFA Europa League 2022/23 Play-Off round

[seso]

Great campaign by HJK. Congrats to Oly too.

It will be nice seeing FC Nantes again in EL-GS! Their previous European appearance was in 2001-02 CL-GS2!

[air]

AS Roma (olasz, 100.000)
Manchester United (angol, 105.000)
Arsenal (angol, 80.000)
Lazio (olasz, 53.000)
Braga (portugál, 46.000)
Crvena zvezda (szerb, 46.000)
Dinamo Kijev (ukrán, 44.000)
Olympiakosz Pireusz (görög, 41.000)

Feyenoord (holland, 40.000)
PSV (holland, 33.000)
Rennes (francia, 33.000)
Monaco (francia, 26.000)
Real Sociedad (spanyol, 26.000)
Qarabag (azeri, 25.000)
Malmö (svéd, 23.500)
Ludogorec (bolgár, 23.000)

Sheriff (moldovai, 22.500)
Real Betis (spanyol, 21.000)
Midtjylland (dán, 19.000)
Bodö/Glimt (norvég, 17.000)
FERENCVÁROS (magyar, 15.500)
Union Berlin (német, 15.042)
Freiburg (német, 15.042)
Fenerbahce (török, 14.500)

Nantes (francia, 12.016)
HJK (finn, 8.500)
Sturm Graz (osztrák, 7.770)
AEK Larnaca (ciprusi, 7.500)
Omonia (ciprusi, 7.000)
FC Zürich (svájci, 7000)
Union Saint-Gilloise (belga, 6.120)
Trabzonspor (török, 5.500)

Pot1: Dinamo Kyiv or Olympiacos please, in this order, if not, Zvezda.
Pot2: Malmö, Ludogorets or Qarabag please, preferably Malmö.
Pot4: HJK, Larnaca, Omonoia in this order. Most important to avoid Nantes and Trabzon.

[bjkman1903]

For Turkish teams, if possible, I want as many clashes as possible with our direct opponents in the ranking.

Pot 1 - Dinamo Kiev (rematch with Fener?), Olympiakos or Zvezda
Pot 2 - Malmö
Pot 3 - only for Trabzon - Midtjylland or Bodo
Pot 4 - only for Fener - Zurich, Sturm, Omonia or AEK

[V Yo-Yo]

Ludogorets are so weak, they should have just fallen to ECL, I can't see them getting many points in ELGS. Two seasons ago they had 0-0-6 and last season they had 0-2-4. Europa League is too tough for them, in ECL they would have been in pot 1 and faced at least some weak opposition from pot 4.

[Todor]

Ludogorets are so weak, they should have just fallen to ECL, I can't see them getting many points in ELGS. Two seasons ago they had 0-0-6 and last season they had 0-2-4. Europa League is too tough for them, in ECL they would have been in pot 1 and faced at least some weak opposition from pot 4.

Apart from HJK from Pot 4 and Sheriff from Pot 3, I don't see any other team they can be considered favorites against with their present form.

[LeRonio]

Its unfortunate that such a questionable penalty at the end of extra time decided the outcome of this game. But anyway another good home game by Zalgiris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-UPGGICldI

[rpo.castro]

From all teams that entered the EL qualification, not counting the drops from CL, only Omonia survived. All the other Play off winners came from CL.

[Juliusz]

From all teams that entered the EL qualification, not counting the drops from CL, only Omonia survived. All the other Play off winners came from CL.

And it was the only pair in which no CL dropout was involved, both Gent and Omonoia entered this round directly. A brutal stat for other EL starters.

[OlliWender]

From all teams that entered the EL qualification, not counting the drops from CL, only Omonia survived. All the other Play off winners came from CL.

And it was the only pair in which no CL dropout was involved, both Gent and Omonoia entered this round directly. A brutal stat for other EL starters.

This stat is once again proving to me how the Cup winners are very rarely the actual 2nd or 3rd best team of the country. With the 2024 reform, the CW spot will gain even more importance for everyone between 16 and 33 now too. Maybe teams will realize at one point how winning the Cup is the shortest route to Europe/much easier route to group stages.

[rpo.castro]

From all teams that entered the EL qualification, not counting the drops from CL, only Omonia survived. All the other Play off winners came from CL.

And it was the only pair in which no CL dropout was involved, both Gent and Omonoia entered this round directly. A brutal stat for other EL starters.

This stat is once again proving to me how the Cup winners are very rarely the actual 2nd or 3rd best team of the country. With the 2024 reform, the CW spot will gain even more importance for everyone between 16 and 33 now too. Maybe teams will realize at one point how winning the Cup is the shortest route to Europe/much easier route to group stages.

Don't see the connection you make. There are only 6 cup winners in this edition of EL: Nantes, Betis, Gent, Omonia, Sivasspor and Slovacko. 2 in GS, 2 faced each other in PO and 2 more out.

How this prove that rarely the Cup winner isn't the 2nd or 3rd best team? This proves exactly the opposite: the cup winners are the best teams and they are in Champions League and not in Europa League!

And teams don't need some fancy european spot to realize how important winning a National cup is because winning a National Cup is way bigger than a spot in Europa League!

[Firnen]

From all teams that entered the EL qualification, not counting the drops from CL, only Omonia survived. All the other Play off winners came from CL.

And it was the only pair in which no CL dropout was involved, both Gent and Omonoia entered this round directly. A brutal stat for other EL starters.

This stat is once again proving to me how the Cup winners are very rarely the actual 2nd or 3rd best team of the country. With the 2024 reform, the CW spot will gain even more importance for everyone between 16 and 33 now too. Maybe teams will realize at one point how winning the Cup is the shortest route to Europe/much easier route to group stages.

Hearts, Silkeborg, Austria Wien and Dnipro were not Cup Winners though, they were 3rd in their leagues.
Omonoia, Gent and Sivasspor were Cup Winners.

Thus the only Cup Winner to lose to a non-Cup Winner was Sivasspor (since Omonoia and Gent faced each other). The others were there thanks to their league position, and got slapped by champions (Zurich, Helsinki) and 2nd placed teams (AEK Larnaca, Fenerbahce).

[OlliWender]

And it was the only pair in which no CL dropout was involved, both Gent and Omonoia entered this round directly. A brutal stat for other EL starters.

This stat is once again proving to me how the Cup winners are very rarely the actual 2nd or 3rd best team of the country. With the 2024 reform, the CW spot will gain even more importance for everyone between 16 and 33 now too. Maybe teams will realize at one point how winning the Cup is the shortest route to Europe/much easier route to group stages.

Don't see the connection you make. There are only 6 cup winners in this edition of EL: Nantes, Betis, Gent, Omonia, Sivasspor and Slovacko. 2 in GS, 2 faced each other in PO and 2 more out.

How this prove that rarely the Cup winner isn't the 2nd or 3rd best team? This proves exactly the opposite: the cup winners are the best teams and they are in Champions League and not in Europa League!

And teams don't need some fancy european spot to realize how important winning a National cup is because winning a National Cup is way bigger than a spot in Europa League!

The lkes of Lyon, Besiktas, Sparta Prague or Young Boys are in the long run much better teams than Nantes, Sivaspor, Slovacko or Lugano but had a worse qualifying positions in the access list or didn't even qualify for Europe at all, but could've by putting more focus on winning the cup.
The point is that many teams don't field their best squads in the cup competitions early rounds. Ironically Russia has always been the most obvious example of big teams going out in the early rounds against lower level competition.

[rpo.castro]

This stat is once again proving to me how the Cup winners are very rarely the actual 2nd or 3rd best team of the country. With the 2024 reform, the CW spot will gain even more importance for everyone between 16 and 33 now too. Maybe teams will realize at one point how winning the Cup is the shortest route to Europe/much easier route to group stages.

Don't see the connection you make. There are only 6 cup winners in this edition of EL: Nantes, Betis, Gent, Omonia, Sivasspor and Slovacko. 2 in GS, 2 faced each other in PO and 2 more out.

How this prove that rarely the Cup winner isn't the 2nd or 3rd best team? This proves exactly the opposite: the cup winners are the best teams and they are in Champions League and not in Europa League!

And teams don't need some fancy european spot to realize how important winning a National cup is because winning a National Cup is way bigger than a spot in Europa League!

The lkes of Lyon, Besiktas, Sparta Prague or Young Boys are in the long run much better teams than Nantes, Sivaspor, Slovacko or Lugano but had a worse qualifying positions in the access list or didn't even qualify for Europe at all, but could've by putting more focus on winning the cup.
The point is that many teams don't field their best squads in the cup competitions early rounds. Ironically Russia has always been the most obvious example of big teams going out in the early rounds against lower level competition.

Manchester city is better then Liverpool, so maybe they could have put more focus on winning the champions league
You are just throwing 2 or 3 names that are the exceptions and not the rule.
And I'm glad that there are smaller teams winning the national cups and lower level teams beating the sharks.