Crystal Palace will discover their Europa League opponents today, Friday 28 August, alongside Bournemouth and Sunderland. The Eagles enter the competition for the first time in their history after lifting the Conference League last season.
Palace had originally been due to play in the Europa League last season but were demoted to the Conference League after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled they had breached multi-club ownership rules.
Qualification and format
17 teams have directly qualified for this season's Europa League, while Palace automatically qualified as Conference League holders. The 36-team tournament will be completed by seven losing teams transferring from the Champions League play-offs and the 12 teams that will qualify through the Europa League play-off round.
Fellow Premier League teams Sunderland and Bournemouth also join Palace in the draw after securing qualification through their league position last season. Serie A giants Juventus and AC Milan have also qualified, as have Bundesliga outfit Bayer Leverkusen and 10-time Ligue 1 champions Marseille.
Draw details and pots
The Europa League league phase draw takes place at 12pm BST today, with the Conference League draw commencing straight after. Palace are confirmed to be in Pot 3 for the draw, alongside Bournemouth and Sunderland, with their current coefficient placing them 85th in UEFA's rankings for European teams.
The ceremony will produce eight opponents for every team, two from each pot. That means Crystal Palace will play two of the top-ranked clubs. They cannot play a team from their own country at this stage and can only play a maximum of two teams from a different association.
Potential opponents
Palace's potential opponents from pot 1 are Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus, AC Milan, Benfica, AZ Alkmaar, Lyon, Olympiacos, Marseille and Real Sociedad. Pot 2 contains Celtic, Ferencvaros, Viktoria Plzen, Union Saint-Gilloise, Dinamo Zagreb, Red Bull Salzburg, Sparta Prague, Rennes and Anderlecht.
Palace will face two of those teams, plus two from their own pot 3, which, excluding Bournemouth and Sunderland, will be Sturm Graz, Lech Poznan, Celje, Jagiellonia Bialystok, Omonia Nicosia or Celta Vigo. Pot 4 contains Hoffenheim, Besiktas, Portuguese second-division club Torreense, Hapoel Be'er Sheva, NEC Nijmegen, OFI Crete, Lillestrom, Levski Sofia and Ararat-Armenia.
