Everything you need to know ahead of the draw for the remaining knockout rounds. The draw for the knockout rounds of the Europa Conference League takes place on Friday, with Chelsea finding out their last-16 opponents and a potential route to the final. The Blues remain the overwhelming favourites to win the competition despite a slip up in domestic form recently, with Enzo Maresca’s side having strolled to six wins from six and 26 goals scored in the competition’s league phase.
Maresca’s decision to include Cole Palmer in the squad for the knockout rounds suggests that the club are taking the competition seriously as they look to become the first side to win all three of Uefa’s main cup competitions. And they will learn their opponents this afternoon, with their first-placed position meaning that they will enjoy a home game in the second leg. Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the draw:.
The draw for the knockout rounds of the Europa Conference League takes place at 2pm CET (1pm GMT) on Friday, 21 February at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland. The draw will follow the conclusion of the Europa League last-16 draw, which begins at around 12pm GMT. The draw will be streamed live on Uefa’s website. You can also follow dedicated coverage on The Independent’s live blog today.
Every team that finished in the top eight of the competition's new league phase table automatically qualified for the last 16. Those clubs were Chelsea, Vitoria SC, Fiorentina, Rapid Wien, Djurgarden, Lugano, Legia Warsaw and Cercle Brugge. The above sides have been placed into seeded pairs and will all play the second legs of their ties at home. The seeded pairs consisted of the teams in first and second, third and fourth, fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth – for example, Chelsea were put into a pair with second-placed Vitoria SC.
The first seeds will face the winners of the knockout phase play-off ties involving the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th-placed teams. For Chelsea, that means they will face one of the winners in the ties between Real Betis and Genk and FC Copenhagen and Heidenheim. The sides who finished in the top eight of the league phase are joined in the draw by the eight teams who won their respective play-off ties. Here is the full list of clubs who will be part of the draw:.
Seeded clubs: Chelsea, Vitoria SC, Fiorentina, Rapid Wien, Djurgården, Lugano, Legia Warsaw and Cercle Brugge. Play-off winners: TBC. From the knockout play-offs onwards the tournament follows a bracket (or tournament tree). This means that teams already know their potential opponents in the round of 16, quarter-finals and semi-finals, as they were pre-determined by the seedings and pairings that were set after the end of the league phase.
For the quarter-finals and semi-finals, the draw is only made to determine the order of the matches (i.e. who plays at home in each leg). The last-16 ties will be played on 6 March and 13 March. After that, the quarter-finals are played in April, while the semi-finals take place in early May. This season, the final will be held on 28 May 2025, at the Stadion Wrocław in Wroclaw, Poland. The full dates for the next round are as follows:.
