Champions League 2021/22: Which teams qualified and who will play in Europa & Conference League?
Paul Macdonald
- Updated: 27 Aug 2021 11:19 CDT
- 5 min read
Chelsea defeated Manchester City in Porto in May to clinch Champions League glory for 2020/21.
The rest of Europe watched on wishing they were involved in the showpiece occasion, battling for what remains the biggest honour in club football.
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With the new club season now well under way, the continent’s top clubs have already began planning for the next European football campaign.
Many of them will have another shot at the Champions League.
Others, though, have had to settle for places in UEFA’s other competitions.
The Europa League – which saw Villarreal crowned winners this season after they beat Manchester United – is back once more.
But there is also a new third-tier tournament to consider, the UEFA Europa Conference League.
While the prestige of the Conference League has been questioned, there are other sides who are even worse off who will not play any European football at all in 2021/22.
Premier League heavyweights Arsenal and Bundesliga outfit Gladbach are among that group.
Here, FootballTransfers have analysed the state of play and listed who has qualified for the Champions League.
Who has qualified for 2021/22 Champions League?
The top four teams in England, Spain, Italy and Germany automatically reach the Champions League group stage.
That is because those four nations are the highest ranked in UEFA’s club coefficient.
This year Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea have progressed from the Premier League.
Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund and Wolfsburg are the teams to represent the Bundesliga.
In Serie A, it is Inter, Milan, Atalanta and Juventus who make the Champions League.
The four teams to qualify for Europe’s top club competition from Spain’s league positions are Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Sevilla. But this year La Liga will have a fifth representative.
As Villarreal won the Europa League, they will become the fifth team from Spain’s top flight to play in the 2021/22 group stage. That is despite finishing the domestic season in seventh position.
France and Portugal get two automatic qualifiers each for the group stage. Lille, PSG, Porto and Sporting CP take those spots.
Five more teams from the rest of Europe achieved automatic entry after winning their respective leagues.
Zenit, Club Brugge, Dynamo Kiev, Ajax and Besiktas are those sides.
In total, 26 of the 32 qualifiers were already locked in for the Champions League before the recent qualifying rounds.
What teams qualified for the Champions League?
The final six spots were decided upon based on the qualification process.
Two of those emerge from the ‘champions path’, consisting only of domestic champions.
Four others come from the ‘league path’ – those who had the opportunity due to coming second or third in those leagues which are highly ranked by UEFA but still below the biggest four.
The champions path eventually saw Salzburg, Young Boys, Malmo and Sheriff progress to the lucrative group stage.
Shakhtar Donetsk and Benfica got the better of Monaco and PSV to seal the last two spots via the league path.
Who has qualified for 2021/22 Europa League?
In the Champions League we already knew all but six participants before qualifying. But just 12 of the 32 teams who will play in the UEFA Europa League group stages were confirmed.
FA Cup winners Leicester City, who narrowly missed out on a Champions League spot for the second straight campaign, and sixth-placed Premier League team West Ham are the English representatives.
Final Serie A placings mean Napoli and Lazio will fly the flag for Italy, with Real Sociedad and Real Betis doing the same for Spain.
Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayer Leverkusen make up a strong Bundesliga contingent.
Lyon and Marseille enter the competition from France, with domestic cup winners in Portugal and Russia – Braga and Lokomotiv Moscow – also confirmed entrants.
Teams who drop out of the Champions League qualification process fell into the Europa League system.
The 12 confirmed group teams will be joined by the six clubs who lost in the Champions League play-off round. They are Monaco, PSV, Brondby, Ferencvaros, Ludogorets and Dinamo Zagreb.
Four more from the UCL process also entered the group stages, teams from the league path who lost in the third qualifying round. Those sides are Midtjylland, Spartak Moscow, Genk and Sparta Prague.
The final 10 spots were filled by those who progressed through Europa League qualifying.
Celtic, Rangers, Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Rapid Wien, Sturm Graz, Royal Antwerp, Olympiacos, Legia Warsaw and Red Star Belgrade emerged from that process.
Who has qualified for 2021/22 Europa Conference League?
The Europa Conference League is a new addition to the UEFA calendar this season.
No teams automatically reached the group stage in this competition prior to qualifying. But that status was ultimately granted to the 10 teams who lose in the Europa League play-off round.
They are AZ, Zorya Luhansk, Randers, HJK, Mura, Omonia, Slovan Bratislava, Alashkert, Slavia Prague and CFR Cluj.
The two most high-profile teams taking part in the Conference League qualifying process were Tottenham and Roma. The Italians are now managed by former Spurs boss Jose Mourinho.
Both of those teams were successful in reaching the competition via Conference League qualifying, a process which also included three losers from the third round of Europa League qualifying will also take part.
Also through to the Conference League groups are Feyenoord, Gent, Copenhagen, Partizan, Anorthosis Famagusta, Jablonec, Bodø/Glimt, Maccabi Haifa, Flora, Lincoln Red Imps, Kairat, Qarabağ, Basel, CSKA Sofia, Rennes, Vitesse, LASK, PAOK, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Union Berlin.
We now know the full line-up for the group stages of the European competitions this season, including the new third competition.
Who will come out on top in 2021/22?
