While all eyes were on the UEFA Champions League knockout round draw today, the Europa League pairings were announced as well on Monday. While the UCL has been whittled down to 16, the UEL field now stands at 32. England has the maximum, of six teams, through to the next phase.
The two London clubs in the smaller significance bracket, Arsenal and Chelsea, learned their European fate today. Chelsea will take on Swedish side Malmo while Arsenal got Belarus club BATE Borisov, who the Blues just beat twice in the group stage. Here’s the graphic of the UEL field:
?OFFICIAL: ROUND OF 32 DRAW!?
? or ? ?#UELdraw pic.twitter.com/goTApmKddP
— UEFA Europa League (@EuropaLeague) December 17, 2018
Full Europa League Round of 32 Draw is Below
Viktoria Plzen vs. Dinamo Zagreb
Club Brugge vs. FC Salzburg
Rapid Vienna vs. Inter Milan
Slavia Prague vs. Genk
Krasnodar vs. Bayer Leverkusen
Zurich vs. Napoli
Malmo vs. Chelsea
Shakhtar Donetsk vs. Frankfurt
Celtic vs. Valencia
Rennes vs. Real Betis
Olympiakos vs. Dynamo Kyiv
Lazio vs. Sevilla
Fenerbache vs. Zenit
Sporting CP vs. Villarreal
BATE Borisov vs. Arsenal
Galatasaray vs. Benfica
Both Arsenal and Chelsea are among the seeded sides, and that means they’ll go on the road for the first legs and then host the second legs, but they cannot host on the same evening. Chelsea, as winners of last season’s FA Cup, get priority. Thus, Arsenal will kickoff their second leg at the earlier time of 5.55 p.m. GMT while the Blues get to start at 8pm.
This is the second-straight season in which Arsenal and BATE will butt heads in this competition, after they were matched up together in the group stage last season.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.