The second edition of the UEFA Conference League will feature another host of well-known clubs who will be expected to make deep runs and emulate Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma side,who won the inaugural trophy last season. The winner claims an automatic berth in next season’s Europa League.
A repeat of the European Cup Winners’ Cup final of 1976 proved to be among the highlights as Premier League side West Ham were drawn to play Anderlecht in one group.
Former winners Villarreal will head to Israel, Austria and Poland, while former Champions League sides such as Molde and Basel have discovered their fates.
The group stage action kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 8 with 32 clubs dreaming of reaching Conference League final on June 7, 2023 in Prague. One of those teams will be Slavia Prague, who are competing in the Conference League knowing that the final will be played at their home stadium of the Fortuna Arena.
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Europa Conference League groups 2022/23
Here’s how the groups look following the Europa Conference League group stage draw on Friday, Aug. 26.
| Pot 1 | Pot 2 | Pot 3 | Pot 4 | |
| Group A | İstanbul Başakşehir | Fiorentina | Hearts | RFS |
| Group B | West Ham | FCSB | Anderlecht | Silkeborg |
| Group C | Villarreal | Hapoel Beer-Sheva | Austria Wien | Lech |
| Group D | Partizan | Koln | Nice | Slovacko |
| Group E | AZ Alkmaar | Apollon | Vaduz | Dnipro-1 |
| Group F | Gent | Molde | Shamrock Rovers | Djurgarden |
| Group G | Slavia Praha | CFR Cluj | Sivasspor | Ballkani |
| Group H | Basel | Slovan Bratislava | Zalgiris | Pyunek |
How does the Europa Conference League group stage work?
There are 32 teams that qualified for the 2022/23 Conference League group stage: 22 of them emerged from the qualifying rounds. The other 10 teams parachuted into the Conference League from the Europa League after losing at the final qualifying hurdle in that competition.
The 32 Conference League teams were sorted into eight groups of four teams each and they will play a classic round-robin style group phase with each team playing the others home and away.
After those six matches are played, the team that finishes atop each group advances to the Round of 16.
The runner-up from each Conference League group will need to survive a playoff round to reach the Round of 16. Those playoffs will involve another set of Europa League teams that will parachute down into the Conference League: This time it’s the third-place teams from the Europa League group stage.
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When does the Europa Conference League start?
Although Conference League qualifying rounds have been taking place throughout the summer, the Conference League group stage kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 8. It will wrap up by Thursday, Nov. 3 before the 2022 FIFA World Cup break.
The first FIFA World Cup that will be played in the November/December time frame will force a condensed timeline for the group stage matches. In fact, all six group games will be taking place in the span of just eight weeks.
Save for an occasional exception, all Conference League matches will generally be played on Thursdays throughout the 2022/23 season. On those days, one set of matches are scheduled to kick off two hours before the others.
Group Stage schedule
- Matchday 1: Sept. 8
- Matchday 2: Sept. 15
- Matchday 3: Oct. 6
- Matchday 4: Oct. 13
- Matchday 5: Oct. 27
- Matchday 6: Nov. 3
Knockout Stage schedule
The group winners advance straight to the Round of 16 in 2023.
The group runners-up will have a chance to reach the Round of 16 in a special playoff round against the third-place group finishers from the Europa League who parachute down into the Conference League.
- Knockout round playoffs: Feb. 16 (1st Leg), Feb. 23 (2nd Leg)
- Round of 16: March 9 (1st Leg), March 16 (2nd Leg)
- Quarter-finals: April 13 (1st Leg), April 20 (2nd Leg)
- Semi-finals: May 11 (1st Leg), May 18 (2nd Leg)
- Final: June 7 (in Prague, Czech Republic)
Draw schedule
After the group stage draw, there will be three remaining draws in the 2022/23 competition. Each draw will be held at 13:00 BST / 08:00 ET.
- Playoff draw: Nov. 7
- Round of 16 draw: Feb. 24
- Quarter-finals & semi-finals: March 17
Europa Conference League pots: How the seeds worked
The 32 teams that qualified for the Conference League group stage were divided into four pots based on their UEFA club coefficient rankings. The coefficient is the result of a formula that takes into account a team’s performance in European competitions over the previous five seasons.
Pot 1 featured the highest-ranking clubs, with Pot 4 holding the lowest-ranked sides.
| Pot 1 | Pot 2 | Pot 3 | Pot 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Villarreal (Spain) |
CFR Cluj (Romania) |
OGC Nice (France) |
Dnipro-1* (Ukraine) |
| Basel (Switzerland) |
Molde (Norway) |
Anderlecht (Belgium) |
Lech Poznan (Poland) |
| Slavia Prague (Czech Rep.) |
FCSB (Romania) |
Zalgiris Vilnius* (Lithuania) |
Slovacko (Czech Rep.) |
| AZ Alkmaar (Netherlands) |
Fiorentina (Italy) |
Austria Wien* (Austria) |
Silkeborg* (Denmark) |
| Gent* (Belgium) |
Koln (Germany) |
Hearts* (Scotland) |
Djugarden (Sweden) |
| Istanbul Basaksehir (Turkey) |
Hapoel Beer-Sheva (Israel) |
Shamrock Rovers* (Ireland) |
Pyunik* (Armenia) |
| Partizan Belgrade (Serbia) |
Apollon Limassol* (Cyprus) |
Sivasspor* (Turkey) |
RFS (Latvia) |
| West Ham United (England) |
Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia) |
Vaduz (Liechtenstein) |
Ballkani (Kosovo) |
* = clubs that dropped down to the Conference League after losing Europa League playoffs
As occurs in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, clubs from the same country could not have been drawn together in the Conference League group stage.
There are fewer of those clashes in the Conference League compared to the Champions League, for example. There are four nations with two representatives who cannot be drawn together in the same group.
| No. of teams |
Nation | Clubs |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Belgium | Anderlecht, Gent |
| 2 | Czech Republic | Slavia Prague, Slovacko |
| 2 | Romania | CFR Cluj, FCSB |
| 2 | Turkey | Istanbul Basaksehir, Sivasspor |
If any of the teams in the list above were drawn into groups A-D of a competition, the team they were paired with would automatically be assigned to groups E-H (by a computer in the computer-assisted draws), and vice-versa.
(Note: Groups A-D and groups E-H always play at different times, with kickoff times staggered by roughly two hours.)
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