The 2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League was the third season of the

UEFA Europa Conference League The UEFA Conference League (UECL), usually known simply as the Conference League, is an annual association football, football competition organised since 2021 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European foot ...

, Europe's tertiary club

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament organised by

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

. The

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

was played at the

Agia Sophia Stadium The Agia Sophia Stadium (), also known as OPAP Arena for sponsorship reasons and as AEK Arena for UEFA competitions, is the home stadium of AEK Athens. With an all-seater capacity of 32,500 it is the third largest football stadium overall in Gre ...

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, Greece. It was won by

Olympiacos Olympiacós Sýndesmos Filáthlon Peiraiós (, Olympic Association of Fans of Piraeus) is a major multi-sport club based in Piraeus, Greece. Olympiacos is parent to a number of different competitive departments which participate in football, ...

, who defeated

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Florence, Tuscany. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while ...

1–0 after

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

, and qualified for the

2024–25 UEFA Europa League The 2024–25 UEFA Europa League was the 54th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 16th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. This was the first season played under ...

league stage as a result. This edition was the final season under this name, as it was renamed to the UEFA Conference League from the 2024–25 season onwards. According to UEFA, the new denomination of the competition would enable further development as a stand-alone competition in their research amongst fans and commercial partners. This was also the final season with the format of 32 teams participating in the

group stage A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

, after UEFA announced that a brand-new

Swiss-system A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...

format would be introduced for the

following ''Following'' is a 1998 British independent neo-noir crime thriller film written, produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Christopher Nolan in his feature film directorial debut. It tells the story of a young man who follows strange ...

edition. Due to the change, no clubs could be transferred from the Europa League group stage to the Conference League, so starting with this edition the winners would no longer be able to defend their title. As the title holders,

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is a professional Association football, football club based in Stratford, London, Stratford, East London, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English f ...

qualified for the

2023–24 UEFA Europa League The 2023–24 UEFA Europa League was the 53rd season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 15th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. The final was played at Aviva Stadium ...

. They were unable to defend their title after advancing to the Europa League knockout phase.

Association team allocation

A total of 178 teams from 54 of the 55

member associations (excluding Russia) participated in the 2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association: * Associations 1–5 each had one team qualify. * Associations 6–16 (except

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

) and 51–55 each had two teams qualify. * Associations 17–50 (except

Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (, ; ; ), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein ( ), is a Landlocked country#Doubly landlocked, doubly landlocked Swiss Standard German, German-speaking microstate in the Central European Alps, between Austria in the east ...

) each had three teams qualify. * Liechtenstein had only one team that qualified as they organized only a domestic cup and no domestic league. * Moreover, 18 teams eliminated from the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League and 25 teams eliminated from the 2023–24 UEFA Europa League were transferred to the Europa Conference League.

Association ranking

For the 2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2022 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2017–18 to 2021–22. Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa Conference League, as noted below: * – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Champions League * – Additional teams transferred from the UEFA Europa League

Distribution

The following is the access list for this season. Due to the suspension of Russia for the 2023–24 European season, the following changes to the access list were made: * The cup winners of association 16 (Czech Republic) entered the Europa League third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round. * The cup winners of associations 17 to 19 (Norway, Denmark and Croatia) entered the third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round. * The cup winners of associations 30 to 39 (Slovakia, Slovenia, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Luxembourg, Latvia and Kosovo) entered the second qualifying round instead of the first qualifying round. Combining with the Champions League title holder (

Manchester City Manchester City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Manchester, England, that competes in the Premier League, the English football league system, top flight of Football in England, English footbal ...

) qualifying for the Champions League group stage via their domestic league, the following changes to the access list were made: * Two of the Champions League first qualifying round losers received byes and entered the third qualifying round instead of the second qualifying round.

Teams

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round: * CW: Domestic cup winners * 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.: League position of the previous season * LC: League cup winners *RW: Regular season winners * PW: End-of-season Europa Conference League play-offs winners * UCL: Transferred from the Champions League ** Q1: Losers from the first qualifying round ** PR: Losers from the preliminary round (F: final; SF: semi-finals) * UEL: Transferred from the Europa League ** GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage ** PO: Losers from the play-off round ** CH/MP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round (Champions/Main Path) The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round were divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP). One team not playing in a national top division took part in the competition:

Vaduz Vaduz (; or ; High Alemannic pronunciation: [])Hans Stricker, Toni Banzer, Herbert Hilbe: ''Liechtensteiner Namenbuch. Die Orts- und Flurnamen des Fürstentums Liechtenstein.'' Band 2: ''Die Namen der Gemeinden Triesenberg, Vaduz, Schaan.'' ...

( 2nd tier). Notes

Round and draw dates

The schedule of the competition was as follows. Matches were scheduled for Thursdays apart from the final, which took place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally could take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts.

Qualifying rounds

First qualifying round

Second qualifying round

Third qualifying round

Play-off round

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 1 September 2023, 14:30

CEST CEST or cest may refer to: * Central European Summer Time (UTC+2), daylight saving time observed in the central European time zone * Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory * Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer, a subset of Magnetization transfer in M ...

, in

Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...

. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots, each of eight teams, based on their club coefficients. Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group. All teams besides AZ, Ballkani, Bodø/Glimt,

Gent Gent is a shortened form of the word gentleman. It may also refer to: * Ghent ( Dutch: Gent), a Belgian city ** K.A.A. Gent, a football club from Ghent ** K.R.C. Gent, a football club from Ghent ** Gent RFC, a rugby club in Ghent ** .gent, ...

, HJK,

Maccabi Tel Aviv Maccabi Tel Aviv () is one of the largest sports clubs in Israel, and a part of the Maccabi association. Many sports clubs and teams in Tel Aviv are in association with Maccabi and compete in a variety of sports, such as football, basketball, j ...

PAOK PAOK (, Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινοπολιτών, ''Panthessalonikeios Athlitikós Ómilos Constantinopoliton'', ''Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans''), commonly ...

, Slovan Bratislava and

Zorya Luhansk FC Zorya Luhansk ( ) is a Ukrainian football team. Zorya Luhansk was based in the city of Luhansk, Ukraine. However, due to the Russo-Ukrainian War, the team currently plays its games at Slavutych-Arena in Zaporizhzhia. The modern club as a ...

made their debut appearances in the group stage. Breiðablik, Čukarički, KÍ, Olimpija Ljubljana and

Zrinjski Mostar Zrinjski Mostar is a sports association from the city of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was formed in 1905. Member clubs *Football: **HŠK Zrinjski Mostar *Basketball: **HKK Zrinjski Mostar (men's) ** ŽKK Zrinjski Mostar (women's) *H ...

all made their debut appearances in a UEFA competition group stage. Breiðablik, KÍ and Zrinjski Mostar were the first teams from Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively, to play in a UEFA competition group stage. Breiðablik also became the first ever team to qualify for the group stages of a UEFA club competition after starting in a preliminary round. A total of 28 national associations were represented in the group stage.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Knockout phase

In the

knockout phase A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

Bracket

Knockout round play-offs

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Statistics

Statistics exclude qualifying rounds and play-off round.

Top goalscorers

Team of the Season

The UEFA technical study group selected the following players as the team of the tournament.

Player of the Season

Ayoub El Kaabi Ayoub El Kaabi (; born 25 June 1993) is a Moroccan professional association football, footballer who plays as a Forward (association football)#Striker, striker for Super League Greece club Olympiacos F.C., Olympiacos and the Morocco national foo ...

(

)

Young Player of the Season

Igor Thiago Igor Thiago Nascimento Rodrigues (born 26 June 2001), known as Igor Thiago or just Thiago, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Premier League club Brentford. Early life Born in Gama, a small city close to capita ...

(

Club Brugge (), known simply as Club Brugge (in English also: ''Club Bruges''), is a Belgian professional football club based in Bruges, Belgium. It was founded in 1891 and its home ground is the Jan Breydel Stadium, which has a capacity of 29,042. They pl ...

)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:2023-24 UEFA Europa Conference League UEFA Conference League seasons 3 3 Sports events affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine