Europa League has found the matches of the knockout round that will take place more than 2 months later. Looking at some of these draw results, it can be seen that there has never been a Europa League season as exciting as this year.
In 2008, the European Football Confederation decided to rename its second-tier tournament from the UEFA Cup to the Europa League. As UEFA shared 9 years ago, although it is still the "back door" of the Champions League, they want to upgrade it. First of all, we have to change the tournament name because no matter how fans approach something new, they will at least get attention.
After 5 years, UEFA decided to give Europa League an "onury" of giving the champion a ticket to the Champions League group stage. Suddenly, the teams participating in this playground have more motivation to compete. Typically, last season's M.U, they only ranked 6th in the Premier League but still managed to win the continental Cup and advance to the Champions League group stage.
This change is considered the biggest and most positive. UEFA has made the Europa League more attractive because in the past, many big players had to participate in this tournament, they all gave up and from there, the number of viewers increased. Not to mention, the big teams are ready to lose the first match of the Europa League qualifiers to keep their players for domestic races.
Looking more broadly, in the era of money-making football, UEFA needs to maximize revenue from its tournaments. It is worth mentioning that the Champions League is still the most attractive club tournament on the planet. Creating more conditions for the Europa League will attract more viewers and from there, sponsorship contracts and advertisements will also automatically jump into the Federation's pockets.
If we leave the Europa League as before, it will be a waste because every year, UEFA has to spend a lot of effort and money to organize it.
Tournaments are getting more and more fierce, so it is not uncommon for the Europa League to now feature names like Arsenal, Dortmund, AC Milan, Lyon, Napoli or Atletico. In the domestic league, these teams are considered to have no chance to win the championship. Therefore, they will focus all their efforts on this second-class arena.
Because who knows, if we could do like M.U last season, it would not be very complete or not?
