MONACO: Manchester United will travel to Turkey to face Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce among their eight games in the league phase of the new-look 36-team Europa League after the draw was made on Friday.

Two Premier League teams have made it to the competition this year, Tottenham Hotspur after finishing fifth and United through their FA Cup victory.

Mourinho, who steered Manchester United to a Europa League triumph in 2017 with a 2-0 final victory over Ajax, is poised for a reunion with his former club, where he served as the manager from 2016 to 2018.

He recently became coach of Fenerbahce, who were knocked out of the Champions League in the third qualifying round.

“Obviously he’s an outstanding coach, it is always going to be a tough place to go and we know that team will be well coached,” United sporting director Dan Ashworth said.

United will also notably play at home to 2022 Europa League runners-up Rangers and go to Portugal to play Porto, another of Mourinho’s old sides.

Tottenham, winners of the tournament’s inaugural edition in 1972, return to European competition following a year-long hiatus.

They will also take on Rangers, in their case away from home. In addition, Ange Postecoglou’s side will play at home to Serie A side AS Roma and go to Istanbul to face Turkish champions Galatasaray, among five other planned fixtures.

The format of the Europa League has changed for this season, along the same lines of the new-look Champions League.

The number of clubs in the competition proper is now 36, all of whom are placed into one league but split into four pots of seeds.

Each participant plays eight games, facing two clubs from each pot, one at home and one away.

For Rangers, other opponents will include Olympique Lyonnais at home, Olympiakos away, and Nice away in France.

Other clubs involved in the competition include former European champions in Ajax as well as FCSB of Romania, who won the 1986 European Cup as Steaua Bucharest.

Eintracht Frankfurt, who beat Rangers in the final two years ago, are present along with Athletic Bilbao, whose stadium will host this season’s final.

The top eight at the end of the league phase — which runs until the end of January — will advance to the last 16, while the teams finishing from ninth to 24th will advance to a play-off round to decide the remaining last-16 spots.

The bottom 12 in the league phase will be eliminated, with no clubs dropping down into the Conference League ahead of the knockouts, and no teams parachuting down from the Champions League as in the past.

UEFA have said that dates for all fixtures will be announced on Saturday.

The first group games will be played on September 25 and 26, a week after the opening matchday of the Champions League.

This season’s Europa League final will be played in Bilbao on May 21 next year. Atalanta won the trophy last season, beating Bayer Leverkusen in the final in Dublin.

CHELSEA HANDED TRIPS TO GERMANY, GREECE

In the Conference League, Chelsea will face trips to German Bundesliga side Heidenheim and to Athens to play Panathinaikos in the league phase.

The Stamford Bridge side are playing in the Conference League for the first time in their history after finishing sixth in last season’s Premier League.

They will play home games against Gent of Belgium, Shamrock Rovers of Ireland and FC Noah of Armenia, who came through four qualifying ties to reach the league stage.

Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea will go to Heidenheim, who qualified after finishing eighth last season in their first ever German Bundesliga campaign.

Chelsea will also visit former European Cup runners-up Panathinaikos and Astana of Kazakhstan.

The London side, who scraped past Servette of Switzerland in the play-offs, will be hoping to add the Conference League to a trophy cabinet which already contains two Champions Lea­gues, two Europa Leagues, two Cup Winners’ Cups and two UEFA Super Cups.

The Conference League was only created three years ago but is being shaken up from this season along the same lines of the other two European competitions.

The group stage has been replaced by a league phase in which all 36 clubs are pooled together.

Participants are then split into six seeded pots, with every team facing one club from each pot for a total of six matches — rather than the eight games per club in the Champions League and Europa League.

Runners-up in each of the last two years, including to Olympiakos in last season’s final, Fiorentina of Italy are once again involved.

Their opponents include The New Saints, who are the first club from the Welsh league system to feature at this stage of a European competition.

Real Betis will be the Spanish representative, while no French team features in the league phase after Lens lost to Panathinaikos in the play-offs.

Hearts of Scotland will notably take on FC Copenhagen and Cercle Brugge away, and Heidenheim at home.

Larne, the first club from the Northern Irish league to reach this stage of a European competition, will host Shamrock Rovers from across the border. The latter will also take on The New Saints.

This season’s Conference League final will be held in Wroclaw, Poland on May 28, next year.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2024