You may be wondering where the Round of 32 has gone in the Europa League this season, well the introduction of the Europa Conference League means that in both Thursday night’s competitions, we have a special Play Off round of games before the Round of 16.
The eight teams that topped their group in the Europa League (which includes West Ham United) have been seeded into that Round of 16, and the eight second placed teams, together with the 8 teams that dropped into this competition from the Champions League, now compete against each other in the playoffs.
A smaller field does mean better quality games and I think the Europa League has benefitted as a result, especially when you see the calibre of some of the games coming up this week with Zenit taking on Betis, Leipzig facing Sociedad, FC Porto facing Lazio, Rangers taking a tricky trip to Dortmund and of course, the huge game between Barcelona and Napoli.
It’s probably not that surprising to note that my four tips for this week’s acca in the Europa League comes from those games (though I was tempted to back Braga to beat Sheriff Tiraspol too).
However, the flip side of this means that there isn’t as much choice as in the Europa League this time last year and that does mean that the odds on this acca aren’t the highest. But a small win is better than a much larger odds bet that doesn’t come in.
Let’s take a closer look at this week’s Europa League games I’ve picked for my Thursday Night acca.