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What to expect from the upcoming Europa League group stage qualifying matches, with Chelsea set to take part in the competition for the first time ever.
What to expect from the upcoming football matches for Europa League QualificationTraditionally, there were only ever two tiers in English football: the top tier, namely the UEFA Champions League, and the second tier, which is the Europa League, which was formerly known as the UEFA Cup. However, for the vast majority of teams, they will never get to experience European football.
And so even the second tier, the Europa League, found itself as an extension almost of the top tier and being very exclusive. This, however, was not the desired intention at all from UEFA.
And so we then saw the launch of the Europe Conference League. You can also bet on the Conference League, which is always held on midweek days. If you look for online different sports games and cups where you can check all betting results, you won’t miss a single result.
What is the Conference League?
Although the initial intention by UEFA’s governing body of the competition was for it to almost act like a third-tier of European football, since its inception, the approach or view on this has changed.
As if a team ends up winning the competition, they qualify directly for the Europa League, which is the tier above. For some teams, this provides a real incentive, and for some teams, this is the only realistic way that they could in fact qualify for the Europa League.
As potentially the domestic situation in their home countries' league could be that those teams above them are, simply put, way ahead of them in terms of skill and will have their European football places cemented as a certain each and every year.
A total of 36 teams play in this tournament at the group stage, with 184 teams battling it out to get to this stage. The winners since it has been founded include:
Roma
West Ham United
Olympiacos
However, the focus on today is what we can expect from this upcoming season’s Conference League.
From the United Kingdom this year is not West Ham, but in fact Chelsea. Although this isn’t where Chelsea were expecting to end up. In fact, they wholly expected to be playing in the Europa League. But after Manchester United beat their derby rivals Manchester City, this earned them a place in the top tier, knocking Newcastle out of Europe altogether.
What are Chelsea’s chances?
The reason we’re focussing on Chelsea is that they will be, by far, favourites to win this tournament. We are talking about a team who have not only been Premier League Champions multiple times but have also won the Champions League and now find themselves two leagues below.
With an attacker in peak form at present in the shape of Cole Palmer. Although there are plenty of other big teams in the competition, including Fiorentina, AEK Athens, Copenhagen, and Gent, just to name a few. With all of these teams entering in the play-off stages in order to qualify for the group stages with the exception of AEK Athens.
Who do they face?
The Blues earlier this month also found out who they would be facing in their first outing in this competition, and that is Swiss side Servette. This was welcome news to fans of the club, who predict a quite hassle-free and hefty win in their club's favour.
They currently find themselves under the guide of Enzo Maresca, who finds this is his first European game in charge of the blues. Servette were in fact in the Europa League, but a 2-1 loss in the qualifying stage means they found themselves dropping to the fourth tier in Europe. The first match will be held at Stamford Bridge on August 22, and then they travel to Switzerland.
Regaining European glory
Despite it being the third tier of European football and off the back of expectations being dropped twice after missing out on Champions League place, then dropping into the Europa, and then missing out on that.
After a few seasons of missing out on European football together, they will be keen to not let this opportunity slip and will be looking to ensure that they are the very least playing in the second tier this season.
Although a lot of fans were sceptical about the creation of the Conference League, when you look at it from the perspective of some teams who otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to play in Europe, you can totally see how it was a welcome addition. Also providing that lucrative opportunity to earn a place in the Europa League.
Who else has a chance?
Another team that you don’t want to rule out and who are also the bookies favourites are that of Fiorentina from Italy. They are the top scoring team from all three UEFA tournaments. They have reached the final of the tournament losing out in the past 2 years and are certainly wanting to ensure that they don’t miss out for a third time.
However, will we see if Chelsea want to throw a spanner in the works and prevent them from reaching glory in the competition again and instead take the glory for themselves and ensure that they end up in the second tier of the competition next season, if they don’t qualify for the Champions League, that is?
In Summary
We’re hoping that reading this today has given you a thorough insight into what the Conference League is and why it was created.
Additionally, we’re hoping that you now have a good idea of who the teams are to look out for in the competition this season. It is not long until the competition gets under way in the qualifying stages, so it is going to be exciting to see if any of the predictions that we have made today actually end up coming through.
However, it is going to be exciting to see the teams battling it out again in this new competition to try and get their place sealed in the second tier of European football.
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