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2014–15 UEFA Europa League group stage


The 2014–15 UEFA Europa League group stage was played from 18 September to 11 December 2014. A total of 48 teams competed in the group stage to decide 24 of the 32 places in the knockout phase of the 2014–15 UEFA Europa League.

The draw was held on 29 August 2014, 13:00 CEST, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The 48 teams were allocated into four pots based on their UEFA club coefficients at the beginning of the season, with the title holders being placed in Pot 1 automatically. They were drawn into twelve groups of four containing one team from each of the four seeding pots, with the restriction that 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 into the two sets of groups (A–F, G–L) for maximum television coverage.

The fixtures are decided after the draw. On each matchday, six groups play their matches at 19:00 CEST/CET, while the other six groups play their matches at 21:05 CEST/CET, with the two sets of groups (A–F, G–L) alternating between each matchday. There are other restrictions: for example, teams from the same city in general do not play at home on the same matchday (UEFA tries to avoid teams from the same city playing at home on the same day), and Russian teams do not play at home on the last matchday due to cold weather.

On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries. Therefore, Ukrainian clubs Dynamo Kyiv, Metalist Kharkiv (both Pot 1) and Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (Pot 2), and Russian clubs Dynamo Moscow and Krasnodar (both Pot 4) could not be drawn into the same group despite being in different pots.


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