Both the UEFA Champions League and Europa League are two of the most prestigious football tournaments in the world and we follow the fixtures diligently on Tonybet. The Champions League is the pinnacle, where only the best teams in Europe can qualify each year from their respective country.
For those who don’t quite qualify for the main event, they compete in the Europa League. Both tournaments have always followed the same structure, which makes it easier when it comes to understanding how they work. We’ll start with the Champions League.
The tournament begins with a qualification phase that involves teams from smaller leagues in Europe and provides them with an opportunity to progress to the group stage.
Clubs that do not qualify automatically for the group stage, due to their overall league finish the season before, must go through several rounds of knockouts in order to earn a potential spot. These rounds are a two-legged affair, with teams playing home and away matches in an attempt to reach the next round.
If successful, we reach the main event, known as the group stage, where until this year 32 teams were divided into eight groups of four. This is the heart of the Champions League, featuring some of the biggest clubs from Europe’s top leagues, including Spain’s La Liga, England’s Premier League, Germany’s Bundesliga, and Italy’s Serie A, to name a few.
Each team played six matches within their group, three at home and three away, facing every other team in the group twice. The top two teams from each group after those matches progress to the knockout stages, while the third-placed team drops into the Europa League.
After the group stage, the competition moves into the knockout phase, which is a series of two-legged, home-and-away matches. The round of 16 is the first knockout round, where the group winners are paired against the runners-up from different groups, ensuring that no team faces another team from their own group or country at this stage.
The winners of the round of 16 advance to the quarterfinals, and the process of knockout matches continues through the semifinals. If teams are tied on aggregate goals after the two legs, extra time and, if necessary, a penalty shootout are used to determine the winner.
The tournament concludes with the final, a single match held at a neutral venue, often one of Europe’s major stadiums. Unlike the earlier rounds, the final is not a two-legged affair, making it a thrilling but tense spectacle. The winner of the final is crowned the UEFA Champions League champion, earning not only glory and a prestigious trophy but also a place in the following season’s competition, regardless of their domestic league performance.
What is the Champions League?
The Champions League is a tournament that sees the best teams from each country in Europe compete against each other hoping to be crowned the overall champions.
The Champions League is the Holy Grail of European club football. It’s where the biggest and best clubs from across Europe come together and compete. Think Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, and Barcelona, who battle it out to be crowned the kings of Europe.
It’s a season-long tournament, where these named giants, along with some dark horses, clash in midweek matches in between their domestic fixtures. Winning the Champions League is the ultimate bragging right for both the club and its fans, putting them on top of the continent and cementing the club’s legacy.
Spanish giants Real Madrid have won the Champions League more than any other club. With no less than 14 titles to their name, they won their first back in 1956 when it was known as the European Cup, but most recently picked up their latest in 2022. Once again, they are among the favourites to win the 2024 edition.
The Europa League is different because…
…it’s slightly more unpredictable? While the main spotlight is very much on the Champions League due to the superstar players involved, the Europa League is where you’ll find a mix of well-known clubs and some wildcard teams from smaller European leagues.
The Europa League is similar to the Champions League, but we see a more diverse range of teams in this competition, which is why certain football fans prefer it.
It hosts many teams that just miss out on Champions League qualification, or offers a second chance to shine to those who crashed out in the Champions League group stages. If you’re looking for a tournament where anything can happen, this is your new Thursday night viewing.
You’ll see up-and-coming teams trying to punch above their weight against some seasoned European veterans who are desperate for silverware, where many Goliath stories come true.
The winner of the Europa League wins a golden ticket to the next season’s Champions League, which makes it even more competitive. For betting? It’s perfect. You can find some real dark horses that’ll give you great odds, and because the tournament’s up and down, upsets happen more often than you’d expect.
Last year, La Liga outfit Sevilla beat Roma to lift the trophy for the seventh time in their history – more than any other club. The Spanish club really dominates this tournament.
To add to the confusion – this year the format has changed
And just when you’ve learnt how the tournaments work for all these years, UEFA have gone ahead and made some changes to make it as competitive as they possibly can. Drastically, too, we’ll add. Don’t worry, it’s similar to the tournament we’ve become accustomed to, only supercharged.
Instead of the usual group stages with 32 teams, there’s now 36 teams in one massive, collective league. Don’t panic, not all the teams play everyone, that would take forever. Instead, they get eight matches against different opponents (four home, four away) based on a seeded system.
After that, the top eight teams automatically qualify for the knockout stage, which stays the same, while teams ranked 9th to 24th face off in a playoff round to try and fill the final spots.
The idea behind it? More matches, more football, more entertainment? We’ll give it a season or two before we make up our mind.
And finally we have the Conference League
A new tournament began in 2021, where the idea behind it was to give other European teams an invitation to the table. Similar to the Champions and Europa League, the Conference League is a European tournament for those that often fail to qualify for the first two tournaments, effectively giving an opportunity for other clubs to compete in a European-wide competition.
The Conference League can be seen as the third tier of European tournaments, below the Champions League and Europa League, and is aimed at levelling the playing field. Fans from “smaller” clubs get the opportunity to see their team compete for European silverware, and it also provides the winner earning a spot in the following season’s Europa League.
West Ham United won it in 2023, while Greek giants Olympiacos lifted the trophy in 2024 and the scenes in Piraeus spread far and wide, showing the expansion was perhaps a great idea in order to grow the game further.
Irish representation is sparse but we’re still trying!
With the Conference League’s expansion, this is offering a further opportunity to Irish clubs to compete on a European stage.
In 2024, several Irish football clubs competed in European competitions, particularly the UEFA Europa League and Conference League.
Shamrock Rovers, the reigning League of Ireland champions, competed in the Champions League qualifiers. They were eliminated, and as a result dropped into the UEFA Europa Conference League qualifiers.
Both Derry City and St. Patrick’s Athletic also competed in the Champions League qualifiers, although neither club failed to qualify for the group stages. Still, this new tournament gives Irish and Northern Irish football clubs hope as well as the opportunity to bring in extra revenue which previously didn’t exist.
With plenty of fixtures across all three European competitions mentioned within this article, you can head to Tonybet to place a number of bets throughout the tournaments, from match winners, group winners, as well as who you think will lift the trophy. Always remember to gamble responsibly.
