The 2010–11 UEFA Europa League was the second season of the UEFA Europa League, Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 40th edition overall including its predecessor, the UEFA Cup. It began on 1 July 2010, with the first qualifying round matches, and concluded on 18 May 2011, with the final at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, between Porto and first-time finalists Braga. This was the first all-Portuguese final of a European competition and only the third time that two Portuguese teams faced each other in Europe, following Braga's elimination of Benfica in the semi-finals. Porto defeated Braga 1–0, with a goal from the competition's top goalscorer Radamel Falcao, and won their second title in the competition, after victory in the 2002–03 UEFA Cup. Atletico Madrid were the defending champions but were eliminated in group stage.

Association team allocation

A total of 194 teams from 53 UEFA associations participated in the 2010–11 UEFA Europa League. Associations were allocated places according to their 2009 UEFA country coefficient, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2004–05 to 2008–09. Below is the qualification scheme for the 2010–11 UEFA Europa League:

Association ranking

Distribution

The winners of the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League, Atlético Madrid, were guaranteed a place in the group stage as the title holder, since they did not qualify for the 2010–11 UEFA Champions League. However, they also qualified for the Europa League third qualifying round through domestic performance, as they were the runners-up of the 2009–10 Copa del Rey to Champions League-qualified Sevilla. As a result, this place in the third qualifying round was vacated, which in turn led to the following changes to the default allocation system in order to compensate for this vacant spot:

Redistribution rules

A Europa League place is vacated when a team qualifies for both the Champions League and the Europa League, or qualifies for the Europa League by more than one method. When a place is vacated, it is 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. Matches in the qualifying, play-off, and knockout rounds may also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts.

Seeding

The draws for the qualifying rounds, the play-off round and the group stage are all seeded based on the 2010 UEFA club coefficients. The coefficients are calculated on the basis of a combination of 20% of the value of the respective national association's coefficient for the period from 2005–06 to 2009–10 inclusive and the clubs' individual performances in the UEFA club competitions during the same period. Clubs are ordered by their coefficients and then divided into pots as required. In the draws for the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, the teams are divided evenly into one seeded and one unseeded pot, based on their club coefficients. A seeded team is drawn against an unseeded team, with the order of legs in each tie also being decided randomly. Due to the limited time between matches, the draws for the second and third qualifying rounds take place before the results of the previous round are known. The seeding in each draw is carried out under the assumption that all of the highest-ranked clubs of the previous round are victorious. If a lower-ranked club is victorious, it simply takes the place of its defeated opponent in the next round. Prior to these draws, UEFA may form "groups" in accordance with the principles set by the Club Competitions Committee, but they are purely for convenience of the draw and do not resemble any real groupings in the sense of the competition, while ensuring that teams from the same association not drawn against each other. In the draw for the group stage, the 48 teams are split into four pots of twelve teams, based on their club coefficients, with the title holder (if participating) automatically placed into Pot 1. Each group contains one team from each pot, but teams from the same association cannot be drawn into the same group. In the draw for the first knockout stage, the twelve group winners and the four better third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage (based on their match record in the group stage) are seeded, and the twelve group runners-up and the other four third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage are unseeded. A seeded team is drawn against an unseeded team, with the seeded team hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group or the same association cannot be drawn against each other. In the draws for the round of 16 onwards, there are no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association may be drawn with each other.

Qualifying rounds

In the qualifying and play-off rounds, teams play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis. The draw for the first two qualifying rounds was made on 21 June 2010, while the draw for the third qualifying round was made on 16 July 2010.

First qualifying round

Second qualifying round

Third qualifying round

Play-off round

The draw for the play-off round was held on 6 August 2010.

Group stage

The 48 clubs were drawn into twelve groups of four on 27 August 2010 in Monaco. In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The matchdays are 16 September, 30 September, 21 October, 4 November, 1–2 December, and 15–16 December 2010. The group winners and runners-up advance to the round of 32, where they are joined by the eight third-placed teams from the group stage of the 2010–11 UEFA Champions League. If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings (in descending order): Following a trial at last year's UEFA Europa League, UEFA have announced that in both this year's and the 2011–12 competition, two extra officials would be used – with one on each goal line.

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 play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The draw for the round of 32 and round of 16 was held on 17 December 2010. The draws for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final (to determine the "home" team) were held on 18 March 2011.

Bracket

Round of 32

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Top goalscorers

The top scorers from the 2010–11 UEFA Europa League (excluding qualifying rounds and play-off round) are as follows: