Following
the draw for the league phase of the 2025-26 UEFA Europa
League, we’ve used the Opta Power Rankings to rank each team’s
fixtures in order of difficulty.
The draw for the league phase of the 2025-26 UEFA Europa League
was completed in Monaco on Friday, and now we have a list of 144
fixtures to analyse.
Over eight matchdays from September to January, the 36 teams
will play four games at home and four away. The sides who finish in
the top eight of the league phase will progress to the round of 16,
and the teams from ninth to 24th will go into a knockout play-off
round to reach the last 16.
The table will look like a normal league in that everyone earns
three points for a win and one for a draw before being sorted into
order based on their results, but it isn’t quite the same as a
normal league format. That’s because every team plays a different
set of eight opponents.
With those eight league phase opponents different for each side,
it’s not a completely level playing field. With that in mind, it’s
natural to ask: who has the easiest draw, and who has the
toughest?
That’s where we come in.
We have used
Opta’s Power Rankings, which ranks 13,000 teams from across the
world on the same scale, to give an objective average rating to
each team’s set of eight Europa League fixtures for 2025-26. Using
the average rating of every team’s opponents, we can work out
precisely who has been given the kindest draw, and who has been
given the biggest challenge.
And so, our next question is…
Which
Teams Have the Easiest Europa League Fixtures?
It’s great news for Aston
Villa fans, as they have been drawn the joint-second easiest
league phase fixtures of the 36 teams in the competition this
season.
The draw handed Unai Emery, the most successful manager in this
competition with four previous titles, favourable games against the
lowest-ranked team in the competition, Go Ahead Eagles (316th), and
one of the only Pot 1 sides to rank outside the top 100 in the Opta
Power Rankings, Salzburg (108th).
The average Opta Power Rating of Villa’s opponents is 83.3,
level with Panathinaikos. Only Ligue 1 side Lyon’s
league phase fixtures are deemed easier (82.1).
Aston Villa have also been helped in that they were unable to
draw Nottingham
Forest in this phase, with the fellow Premier League club the
next highest-ranked team in the Opta Power Rankings (16th) after
Villa.
Despite their high ranking, Forest’s first foray into the
(modern) Europa League will see them play the joint-10th hardest
fixtures in the league phase.
Elsewhere, Rangers fans will be happy they have an easier set of
games (84.2) than bitter rivals Celtic…
Champions League 2025-26 Fixture Difficulty
Which
Teams Have the Toughest Europa League Fixtures?
Celtic suffered a shock exit in the UEFA Champions League
qualification play-offs to Kazakhstan’s Kairat, and their
punishment for that is to face the third-hardest league phase
fixtures in the Europa League.
There are only 14 Europa League teams other than Brendan
Rodgers’ side to be in the Opta Power Rankings’ top 72, and Celtic
will play against five of them: Roma
(24th), Bologna
(42nd), Feyenoord (45th), Sporting Braga (60th) and Crvena Zvezda
(72nd).
Only FC Utrecht and Maccabi Tel Aviv (both 86.7) will face
opponents with a higher average Opta Power Rating than Celtic
(86.0).
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