Knowledge (XXG)

This article details the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League group stage.

The group stage featured 48 teams: the 38 winners of the play-off round, and the 10 losing teams from the Champions League play-off round.

The teams were drawn into twelve groups of four, and played each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The matchdays were 15 September, 29 September, 20 October, 3 November, 30 November–1 December, and 14–15 December 2011.

The top two teams in each group advanced to the round of 32, where they were joined by the eight third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage.

The draw for the group stage was held at Grimaldi Forum, Monaco on 26 August 2011 at 13:00 CEST (UTC+02:00).

Teams were seeded into four pots based on their 2011 UEFA club coefficients. Pot 1 held teams ranked 18–49, Pot 2 held teams ranked 51–85, Pot 3 held teams ranked 89–154, while Pot 4 held teams ranked 155–302 and unranked teams.

Key to colours
Qualified for the round of 32

Pot 1 Team Coeff Tottenham Hotspur 78.157 PSV Eindhoven 74.025 Atlético Madrid 70.465 Sporting CP 68.319 Braga 62.319 Schalke 04 61.887 Dynamo Kyiv 60.776 Paris Saint-Germain 51.735 Copenhagen 51.110 AZ 43.025 Anderlecht 42.400 Twente 41.025

Pot 2 Team Coeff Fulham 40.157 Beşiktaş 37.010 Hapoel Tel Aviv 36.400 Metalist Kharkiv 34.276 Standard Liège 32.400 Rubin Kazan 31.941 Club Brugge 31.400 AEK Athens 30.833 Steaua București 29.164 Udinese 27.110 Athletic Bilbao 24.465 Lazio 23.110

Pot 3 Team Coeff Red Bull Salzburg 22.140 Maccabi Haifa 21.400 Zürich 18.980 Odense 18.610 Lokomotiv Moscow 18.441 PAOK 17.333 Birmingham City 17.157 Stoke City 17.157 Rennes 16.735 Austria Wien 16.640 Rapid București 16.164 Hannover 96 13.887

Pot 4 Team Coeff Vorskla Poltava 10.276 Wisła Kraków 10.183 Vaslui 10.164 Sion (replaced by Celtic) 9.480 Sturm Graz 8.640 Maccabi Tel Aviv 5.900 Slovan Bratislava 5.899 Legia Warsaw 5.183 Maribor 4.224 AEK Larnaca 3.624 Malmö FF 2.825 Shamrock Rovers 2.741

Losing teams from the Champions League play-off round (Champions Route)

Losing teams from the Champions League play-off round (League Route)

Celtic lodged protests over the eligibility of a number of the Sion players who participated in the two legs of the play-off round, which Sion won 3–1 aggregate (first leg: 0–0; second leg: 3–1). The UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body accepted the protests and decided to award both matches to Celtic by forfeit (3–0). As a consequence, Celtic qualified for the UEFA Europa League group stage.

For the group stage draw, teams from the same national association could not be drawn against each other. Moreover, the draw was controlled for teams from the same association in order to split the teams evenly for maximum television coverage. For example, if there were two teams from the same association, each team was drawn into a different set of groups (A–F, G–L); if there were four teams from the same association, each team was drawn into a different subset of groups (A–C, D–F, G–I, J–L).

The fixtures were decided after the draw. On the first four matchdays, when matches were played only on Thursdays, six groups played their matches at 19:00 CET/CEST, while the other six groups played their matches at 21:05 CET/CEST, with the two sets of groups (A–F, G–L) alternating between each matchday. On the final two matchdays, when matches were played on both Wednesdays and Thursdays, the two sets of groups were divided into four smaller subsets (A–C, D–F, G–I, J–L), with each subset of groups playing on a different day and time. There are other restrictions, e.g., teams from the same city (e.g. Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham) do not play at home on the same matchday (UEFA tries to avoid teams from the same city play at home on the same day), and Russian teams do not play at home on the last matchday due to cold weather.

If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria would be applied to determine the rankings:

1. higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
2. superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question;
3. higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question;
4. higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question;
5. If, after applying criteria 1) to 4) to several teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, the criteria 1) to 4) will be reapplied to determine the ranking of these teams;
6. superior goal difference from all group matches played;
7. higher number of goals scored from all group matches played;
8. higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons.

Times up to 29 October 2011 (matchdays 1–3) are CEST (UTC+02:00), thereafter (matchdays 4–6) times are CET (UTC+01:00).

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		PAOK	RK	TH	SR
1	PAOK	6	3	3	0	10	6	+4	12	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–1	0–0	2–1
2	Rubin Kazan	6	3	2	1	11	5	+6	11			2–2	—	1–0	4–1
3	Tottenham Hotspur	6	3	1	2	9	4	+5	10			1–2	1–0	—	3–1
4	Shamrock Rovers	6	0	0	6	4	19	−15	0			1–3	0–3	0–4	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		SL	HAN	COP	VP
1	Standard Liège	6	4	2	0	9	1	+8	14	Advance to knockout phase		—	2–0	3–0	0–0
2	Hannover 96	6	3	2	1	9	7	+2	11			0–0	—	2–2	3–1
3	Copenhagen	6	1	2	3	5	9	−4	5			0–1	1–2	—	1–0
4	Vorskla Poltava	6	0	2	4	4	10	−6	2			1–3	1–2	1–1	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		PSV	LW	HTA	RB
1	PSV Eindhoven	6	5	1	0	13	5	+8	16	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–0	3–3	2–1
2	Legia Warsaw	6	3	0	3	7	9	−2	9			0–3	—	3–2	3–1
3	Hapoel Tel Aviv	6	2	1	3	10	9	+1	7			0–1	2–0	—	0–1
4	Rapid București	6	1	0	5	5	12	−7	3			1–3	0–1	1–3	—

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Notes

• Note 1: Rapid București played their home matches at Arena Națională, Bucharest as they have left their own Stadionul Giuleşti-Valentin Stănescu prior to the season.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		SCP	LAZ	VAS	ZÜR
1	Sporting CP	6	4	0	2	8	4	+4	12	Advance to knockout phase		—	2–1	2–0	2–0
2	Lazio	6	2	3	1	7	5	+2	9			2–0	—	2–2	1–0
3	Vaslui	6	1	3	2	5	8	−3	6			1–0	0–0	—	2–2
4	Zürich	6	1	2	3	5	8	−3	5			0–2	1–1	2–0	—

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Notes

• Note 2: Vaslui played their home matches at Stadionul Ceahlăul, Piatra Neamț as their own Stadionul Municipal did not meet UEFA criteria.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		BEŞ	SC	DK	MTA
1	Beşiktaş	6	4	0	2	13	7	+6	12	Advance to knockout phase		—	3–1	1–0	5–1
2	Stoke City	6	3	2	1	10	7	+3	11			2–1	—	1–1	3–0
3	Dynamo Kyiv	6	1	4	1	7	7	0	7			1–0	1–1	—	3–3
4	Maccabi Tel Aviv	6	0	2	4	8	17	−9	2			2–3	1–2	1–1	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		AB	RBS	PSG	SB
1	Athletic Bilbao	6	4	1	1	11	8	+3	13	Advance to knockout phase		—	2–2	2–0	2–1
2	Red Bull Salzburg	6	3	1	2	11	8	+3	10			0–1	—	2–0	3–0
3	Paris Saint-Germain	6	3	1	2	8	7	+1	10			4–2	3–1	—	1–0
4	Slovan Bratislava	6	0	1	5	4	11	−7	1			1–2	2–3	0–0	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		MK	AZ	AW	MFF
1	Metalist Kharkiv	6	4	2	0	15	6	+9	14	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–1	4–1	3–1
2	AZ	6	1	5	0	10	7	+3	8			1–1	—	2–2	4–1
3	Austria Wien	6	2	2	2	10	11	−1	8			1–2	2–2	—	2–0
4	Malmö FF	6	0	1	5	4	15	−11	1			1–4	0–0	1–2	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		CB	BRA	BC	MAR
1	Club Brugge	6	3	2	1	12	9	+3	11	Advance to knockout phase		—	1–1	1–2	2–0
2	Braga	6	3	2	1	12	6	+6	11			1–2	—	1–0	5–1
3	Birmingham City	6	3	1	2	8	8	0	10			2–2	1–3	—	1–0
4	Maribor	6	0	1	5	6	15	−9	1			3–4	1–1	1–2	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		AM	UDI	CEL	REN
1	Atlético Madrid	6	4	1	1	11	4	+7	13	Advance to knockout phase		—	4–0	2–0	3–1
2	Udinese	6	2	3	1	6	7	−1	9			2–0	—	1–1	2–1
3	Celtic	6	1	3	2	6	7	−1	6			0–1	1–1	—	3–1
4	Rennes	6	0	3	3	5	10	−5	3			1–1	0–0	1–1	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		SCH	SB	MHA	AEK
1	Schalke 04	6	4	2	0	13	2	+11	14	Advance to knockout phase		—	2–1	3–1	0–0
2	Steaua București	6	2	2	2	9	11	−2	8			0–0	—	4–2	3–1
3	Maccabi Haifa	6	2	0	4	10	12	−2	6			0–3	5–0	—	1–0
4	AEK Larnaca	6	1	2	3	4	11	−7	5			0–5	1–1	2–1	—

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Notes

• Note 3: Steaua București played their home match against Schalke 04 at Stadionul Dr. Constantin Rădulescu, Cluj-Napoca as the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group D match between Romania and France left the grass at the Arena Națională in an unplayable state.
• Note 4: AEK Larnaca played their home matches at GSP Stadium, Nicosia as their own GSZ Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		TWE	WK	FUL	OB
1	Twente	6	4	1	1	14	7	+7	13	Advance to knockout phase		—	4–1	1–0	3–2
2	Wisła Kraków	6	3	0	3	8	13	−5	9			2–1	—	1–0	1–3
3	Fulham	6	2	2	2	9	6	+3	8			1–1	4–1	—	2–2
4	Odense	6	1	1	4	9	14	−5	4			1–4	1–2	0–2	—

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Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		AND	LM	AEK	SG
1	Anderlecht	6	6	0	0	18	5	+13	18	Advance to knockout phase		—	5–3	4–1	3–0
2	Lokomotiv Moscow	6	4	0	2	14	11	+3	12			0–2	—	3–1	3–1
3	AEK Athens	6	1	0	5	8	15	−7	3			1–2	1–3	—	1–2
4	Sturm Graz	6	1	0	5	5	14	−9	3			0–2	1–2	1–3	—

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• 2011–12 UEFA Europa League, UEFA.com