The History of the Europa League Ahead of its 52nd Edition

09/09/22 1599

The Europa League is back on our TV screens for the 2022/23 season as the likes of Roma, Manchester United and Arsenal all look to put down an early marker on the competition within the group stages.

Here, we look back at the history of the Europa League and a look at last season’s tournament.

A History of the Europa League

The Europa League has not quite been around for as long as people may have imagined. In fact, with 67 years of Champions League action, Europe's second-biggest club competition has only been on the block for 51 years, and was known as the UEFA Cup from 1971-2009 until it was rebranded to the Europa League.

Eintracht Frankfurt are the defending champions, but it’s La Liga giants, Sevilla, who can lay claim to being the best side in Europa League history with six titles - all six triumphs have come since 2005/06 as the last trophy came in 2019/20.

The UEFA Cup was preceded by the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971.

Ever since 1971, there have been 13 trophy wins for teams from Spain, nine from England and nine from Italy, seven from Germany, four from the Netherlands, and two each from Russia, Sweden and Portugal.

The first final ended with an all-English affair between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur, as Spurs took the first-ever trophy.

How did 2021/22 go?

As mentioned Frankfurt went on to win the trophy last time out, but this didn’t come without a fantastic season unfolding first. Rangers managed to stun the continent by making it to the final, beating the likes of Borussia Dortmund along the way.

Frankfurt, on the other hand, were phenomenal from start to finish as they defeated the likes of Barcelona and West Ham United over two legs.

A 1-1 scoreline was the most common one last season, with 14.29% of matches ending this way. Quite remarkably, over 2.5 goals happened 88 times and then 87 times for under 2.5 goals, which makes it close to a 50-50 split in this regard.

What's more, 471 goals were scored with an average of 2.69 goals per game.

Lyon were the best attack with 16 goals scored, as Lazio, West Ham and Galatasaray ended up with just three goals conceded.

However, it's West Ham who boasted the best defence as they made it to the semi-finals and conceded just three too, but across more games.