{"id":655253,"date":"2026-05-20T22:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/655253\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T22:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:19:08","slug":"could-england-have-six-teams-in-champions-league-aston-villas-europa-league-win-means-they-could","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/655253\/","title":{"rendered":"Could England have six teams in Champions League? Aston Villa&#8217;s Europa League win means they could"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/aston-villa\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aston Villa<\/a>&#8216;s Europa League win against Freiburg ended their 44-year wait for a European trophy &#8211; and kept alive the Premier League&#8217;s hopes of a sixth Champions League spot next season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Unai Emery&#8217;s men had already confirmed their place in next season&#8217;s elite European competition with a top-five finish, but now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/afc-bournemouth\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bournemouth<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/brighton-and-hove-albion\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brighton<\/a> will know sixth place could earn a place alongside them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If the Villans finish fifth in the Premier League, Unai Emery&#8217;s side will qualify for the Champions League as the Europa League winners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The extra Champions League place that the Premier League earned through the European Performance Spot would then go to the team finishing sixth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Villa would finish fifth in they lost at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-city\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester City<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/liverpool\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liverpool<\/a> also won at home to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/brentford\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brentford<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Should that happen, the Champions League qualification focus then turns to sixth spot. If <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/afc-bournemouth\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bournemouth<\/a> avoid defeat at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/nottingham-forest\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nottingham Forest<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/brighton-and-hove-albion\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brighton<\/a> fail to win at home to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a>, the Cherries would finish sixth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Should <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/afc-bournemouth\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bournemouth<\/a> lose and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/brighton-and-hove-albion\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brighton<\/a> win, it would then be the Seagulls who claimed sixth spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aston Villa&#8216;s Europa League win against Freiburg ended their 44-year wait for a European trophy &#8211; and kept&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-655253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}