2024-08-30 19:26:28
The winner of the Bulgarian title in the last 13 years, “Ludogorets” will meet renowned names such as “Lazio”, “Athletic” (Bilbao) and “Lyon” in the Europa League.
The draw in Monaco determined the 8 opponents of Razgrad in the new format of the second most powerful European tournament and they are “Slavia” (Prague, Czech) (home), “Lazio” (It) (guest), “AZ Alkmaar” (Nid) (home), Lyon (Fr) (away), Midtjylland (Dan) (home), Victoria (Pilsen, Czech) (away), Athletic (Bilbao, Esp) (home) and Anderlecht ” (Bell) (guest).
Similar to the Champions League, 36 teams will participate in the new format of the Europa League. In the hybrid draw, club names were manually drawn and then a computer determined their opponents and home and away ties.
The first 8 in the standings, which will be overall, enter directly into the 1/8 finals. The 9th to 24th place finishers will advance to the play-off for the top 16. The matches of this playoff round will be played on February 13 and 20.
After that, the tournament continues according to the scheme with 1/8-finals, 1/4-finals and 1/2-finals in 2 matches of an exchange away and a final match. He will be on May 21 in Bilbao.
Teams that finish between 25th and 36th place are eliminated from the tournaments. The first matches of the new Europa League format are scheduled for September 25/26.
In February 2014, under the leadership of Stoycho Stoev, “Ludogorets” eliminated “Lazio” in the round of 16 of the Europa League after 1:0 in Italy and a dramatic 3:3 in Sofia. Thus, the people of Razgrad reached the first place in their history in the tournaments. In the 1/8-finals they were eliminated by “Valencia” (Spain).
Also, “Ludogorets” has already met in Europe “Viktoria (Pilsen)” (2:0 and 2:2 in the playoff for entering the groups of the Champions League in 2016), “Midtland” (1:1 draw and 0: 0 in the Europa League 2 years ago) and “Anderlecht” (1:0, 1:2 and elimination after penalties in the round of 16 of the Conference League at the beginning of last year).