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]

DrawEdit

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]

Spain: Real Betis and Sevilla
Germany: Eintracht Frankfurt and RB Leipzig
England: Chelsea and Arsenal
Italy: Lazio and Milan
France: Marseille and Bordeaux
Russia: Spartak Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg
Ukraine: Dynamo Kyiv and Vorskla Poltava
Belgium: Standard Liège and Anderlecht
Turkey: Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş
Czech Republic: Slavia Prague and Jablonec
Greece: PAOK and Olympiacos
Austria: Red Bull Salzburg and Rapid Wien
Scotland: Celtic and Rangers
Cyprus: AEK Larnaca and Apollon Limassol
Norway: Rosenborg and Sarpsborg 08

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).

TeamsEdit

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 advance 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

^EL-CP Winners of play-off round (Champions Path).
^EL-MP Winners of play-off round (Main Path).
^CL-CP Losers of Champions League play-off round (Champions Path).
^CL-LP Losers of Champions League play-off round (League Path).
^CL-LQ Losers of Champions League third qualifying round (League Path).

FormatEdit

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.

TiebreakersEdit

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]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
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;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Away goals scored in all group matches;
Wins in all group matches;
Away wins in all group matches;
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
UEFA club coefficient.

GroupsEdit

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 AEdit

Pos	Team v t e	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	Advance to knockout phase	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	—

Source: UEFA
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers

20 September 2018

21:00 (22:00 EEST)

AEK Larnaca	0–1	Zürich
	Report	Kololli 61' (pen.)

GSP Stadium, Nicosia^{[note 2]}

Attendance: 3,173^[8]

Referee: Jonathan Lardot (Belgium)

20 September 2018

21:00 (22:00 EEST)

Ludogorets Razgrad	2–3	Bayer Leverkusen
Keșerü 8' Marcelinho 31'	Report	Havertz 38', 69' Kiese Thelin 63'

Ludogorets Arena, Razgrad

Attendance: 8,240^[9]

Referee: Paolo Mazzoleni (Italy)

4 October 2018

18:55

Bayer Leverkusen	4–2	AEK Larnaca
Havertz 44' Alario 49', 88' Brandt 90+2'	Report	Trichkovski 25' Raspas 90+1'

BayArena, Leverkusen

Attendance: 23,354^[10]

Referee: Yevhen Aranovskyi (Ukraine)

4 October 2018

18:55

Zürich	1–0	Ludogorets Razgrad
Pálsson 84'	Report

Letzigrund, Zürich

Attendance: 7,092^[11]

Referee: Juan Martínez Munuera (Spain)

25 October 2018

18:55

Zürich	3–2	Bayer Leverkusen
Marchesano 44' Domgjoni 59' Odey 78'	Report	Bellarabi 50', 54'

Letzigrund, Zürich

Attendance: 12,427^[12]

Referee: Aliyar Aghayev (Azerbaijan)

25 October 2018

18:55 (19:55 EEST)

AEK Larnaca	1–1	Ludogorets Razgrad
Larena 25' (pen.)	Report	Lukoki 7'

GSP Stadium, Nicosia^{[note 2]}

Attendance: 2,631^[13]

Referee: Enea Jorgji (Albania)

8 November 2018

21:00

Bayer Leverkusen	1–0	Zürich
Jedvaj 60'	Report

BayArena, Leverkusen

Attendance: 16,179^[14]

Referee: Paweł Gil (Poland)

8 November 2018

21:00 (22:00 EET)

Ludogorets Razgrad	0–0	AEK Larnaca
	Report

Ludogorets Arena, Razgrad

Attendance: 4,520^[15]

Referee: Ole Hobber Nilsen (Norway)

29 November 2018

18:55

Zürich	1–2	AEK Larnaca
Khelifi 74'	Report	Giannou 38' Trichkovski 85'

Letzigrund, Zürich

Attendance: 6,107^[16]

Referee: Aleksei Eskov (Russia)

29 November 2018

18:55

Bayer Leverkusen	1–1	Ludogorets Razgrad
Weiser 85'	Report	Marcelinho 69'

BayArena, Leverkusen

Attendance: 16,066^[17]

Referee: Dennis Higler (Netherlands)

13 December 2018

21:00 (22:00 EET)

AEK Larnaca	1–5	Bayer Leverkusen
Català 26'	Report	Kohr 28', 68' Alario 41' (pen.), 86' Paulinho 78'

GSP Stadium, Nicosia^{[note 2]}

Attendance: 1,584^[18]

Referee: François Letexier (France)

13 December 2018

21:00 (22:00 EET)

Ludogorets Razgrad	1–1	Zürich
Świerczok 45+1'	Report	Forster 21' (o.g.)

Ludogorets Arena, Razgrad

Attendance: 2,150^[19]

Referee: Kirill Levnikov (Russia)

Group BEdit

Pos	Team v t e	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	Advance to knockout phase	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	—

Source: UEFA
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers

20 September 2018

21:00

RB Leipzig	2–3	Red Bull Salzburg
Laimer 70' Poulsen 82'	Report	Dabbur 20' Haidara 22' Gulbrandsen 89'

Red Bull Arena, Leipzig

Attendance: 24,057^[20]

Referee: Andreas Ekberg (Sweden)

20 September 2018

21:00 (20:00 BST)

Celtic	1–0	Rosenborg
Griffiths 87'	Report

Celtic Park, Glasgow

Attendance: 47,287^[21]

Referee: Paweł Gil (Poland)

4 October 2018