Olympique de Marseille fell into a formidable group with Ajax Amsterdam, English club Brighton and AEK Athens for the group stage of the Europa League, the draw of which was made on Friday in Monaco. Rennes also inherited a strong group with Villarreal, winner of the trophy in 2021, Maccabi Haifa, who played in the Champions League last season, and Panathinaikos Athens, who fell OM this summer and then eliminated in the play-offs from the C1. The fate was a little less harsh with the third French club engaged. If Toulouse is in the group of Liverpool, the other adversaries, the Austrians Linz ASK and the Union Saint-Gilloise, a club of Brussels, are more accessible.
“It’s a very tough group,” said Marseille president Pablo Longoria. “The level of competitiveness will be very high. There is a team with a great European tradition which is Ajax, Brighton which are the revelations of the Premier League and AEK which are champions of Greece. ‘intensity.” OM have already met the Amsterdam giant three times in their history. The first two times he lost, against Johan Cruyff’s team in 1972 in the round of 16 of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (2-1/4-1), then that of Danny Blind, Rob Witschge and debutant Dennis Bergkamp in 1988 in the semi-finals of the 1988 Cup Cup (0-3/2-1).
The 2023/24 group stage is set ✅#UELdrawpic.twitter.com/rKmamwpJyf
— UEFA Europa League (@EuropaLeague) September 1, 2023
A France / Netherlands duel for the UEFA index
But in 2009, the Marseille of Mamadou Niang and Mathieu Valbuena took their revenge in the round of 16 of the Europa League against the Ajax of the young Luis Suarez, snatching the qualification thanks to a goal from the Jamaican Tyrone Mears in extra time in Amsterdam ( 2-1/2-2 ap). The fourth clash between former European champions is also spiced up by the elbow-to-elbow between France and the Netherlands in the UEFA index. For the moment, Ligue 1 is slightly behind the Eredivisie in the race for the so precious fifth place, the one which gives the right to a fourth team in C1.
Favorable draw for Lille in the Europa League Conference
Faller of the Croats of Rijeka after extra time in the play-off of the Europa League Conference on Thursday evening, Lille inherits an affordable chicken. Paulo Fonseca’s men will face the Slovaks of Slovan Bratislava, the Slovenians of Olimpia Ljubljana and Klaksvik, a formation of the Faroe Islands which participates in the first group stage of its history in the European Cup.
The 2023/24 group stage is complete ✅#UECLdrawpic.twitter.com/szTXn8mxQ7
— UEFA Europa Conference League (@europacnfleague) September 1, 2023
AEK is also an old acquaintance of OM because of the friendship that binds two important groups of supporters, Commando Ultra 84 in Marseille and Original 21 in Athens. Fallout of OM in the third preliminary round of the C1, Panathinaikos stands this time on the road to Rennes. The Bretons, launched in their sixth consecutive European campaign, will meet other greens, those of Maccabi Haifa, who were in the Paris SG group in the Champions League last season, and also fell in the play-offs, such as the “Pana “.
With Villarreal’s ‘Yellow Submarine’ seeded, this group looks balanced. In that of Toulouse, the ogre is called Liverpool, which had corrected Elie Baup’s team in the 2007-2008 C1 play-offs (1-0/4-0). But for its return to the European Cup 14 years after its last participation, Téfécé can compete with the vice-champions of Belgium, however quarter-finalists of the last edition, and Linz ASK.