The 2009–10 UEFA Europa League was the first season of the UEFA Europa League, Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA. The competition was previously known as the UEFA Cup, which had been in existence for 38 years. Spain's Atlético Madrid won the tournament for the first time, beating Fulham – who were playing in their first European final – at the Volksparkstadion, home ground of Hamburger SV, in Hamburg, Germany. Shakhtar Donetsk were the defending champions, but were eliminated by eventual finalists Fulham in the round of 32.

Association team allocation

A total of 192 teams from 53 UEFA associations participated in the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League. Associations were allocated places according to their 2008 UEFA country coefficient, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2003–04 to 2007–08. Below iss the qualification scheme for the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League:

Association ranking

Distribution

Since the winners of the 2008–09 UEFA Cup, Shakhtar Donetsk, qualified for the 2009–10 UEFA Champions League through domestic performance, the title holder spot reserved for them in the group stage was vacated. As this was the first edition of the Europa League, it was initially unknown whether UEFA would simply disregard the vacant title holder spot and rearrange entries so that one more team would qualify from the play-off round, or replace the title holders' group stage place with that of the top-ranked association's cup winner and move teams from lower rounds appropriately, as the regulations were unclear on this matter. The former set-up was confirmed by UEFA's official list of participants, published on 16 June 2009. As a result, the following changes to the default allocation system were made to compensate for the vacant title holder spot in the group stage:

Redistribution rules

A Europa League place was vacated when a team qualified for both the Champions League and the Europa League, or qualified for the Europa League by more than one method. When a place was vacated, it was redistributed within the national association by the following rules:

Teams

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:

Round and draw dates

All draws held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland unless stated otherwise.

Qualifying rounds

In the qualifying phase and the play-off round, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis.

First qualifying round

Second qualifying round

Third qualifying round

Play-off round

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 28 August 2009. A total of 48 teams were drawn into twelve groups of four. Teams were divided into four pots, based on their club coefficient. Clubs from the same pot or the same association cannot be drawn into the same group. A total of 24 associations were represented in the group stage. This was the first time teams from Latvia or Moldova qualified for the group stage of any European competition. In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away. The matchdays were 17 September, 1 October, 22 October, 5 November, 2–3 December, and 16–17 December 2009. The top two in each group advanced to the knockout phase. If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings: During this stage of the tournament, matches featured five on-field officials – with two additional officials monitoring play around the penalty area as part of a FIFA-sanctioned experiment.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Group I

Group J

Group K

Group L

Knockout phase

In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.

Bracket

Round of 32

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Statistics

Top scorers and assists (excluding qualifying rounds and play-off round):

Top goalscorers

Top assists

Source: