The Europa League Rising in Influence?

Cover Image from - IMAGO/AFLOSPORT - https://futbol.si.com/news/manchester-united-guaranteed-uefa-europa-place-next-season 

For most players and clubs, one of their ultimate dreams is to participate in the UEFA Champions League or FIFA World Cup. These competitions provide the best teams across the world that have earned their spot through their respective league positioning domestically and qualifiers for the World Cup. They are the most highly anticipated and watched competitions across the whole sporting brackets bringing in crazy concurrent viewership numbers which can reach billions during the climax of those tournaments. 

Thus often tournaments such as the Europa League are overlooked as the hype and viewership are far less significant in comparison to the Champions League. Therefore, fans have the predetermined thoughts that the competitiveness within the tournament is not as thrilling or fun as the Champions League. And of course, there is some truth to that, the quality of teams is mostly worse compared to that of the Champions League and the atmosphere in some stadiums is dull and dry which can make it hard to retain viewership for a whole match for the neutral supporters.

However, in recent years some big names have been a part of the Europa League, Manchester United, Arsenal, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, and Liverpool - to name a few of the star-studded teams who have played in the competition in the last decade. The increase in quality and competition in the Champions League has allowed the growth to be transferred to the Europa League as well as teams with a rich history may not finish well in their league or group stages of the CL drop down to the Europa League.

The prize itself has a lot of value as well, a major trophy and an automatic spot in the following season's Champions League and a place in the Super Cup final (play the winners of the Champions League) to win another major trophy and then the Club World Cup. So the sentiment and value of this tournament should definitely not be taken lightly as in football you never know what's going to happen.

Hence watching more and more top teams in the Europa League has certainly increased its value and viewership for neutral fans. And it isn't exactly an easy tournament to win for these major teams as Barcelona found out in the 21/22 campaign where they were truly and well beaten by a very exciting and well-coached Frankfurt side. Man United also fell short in the 20/21 campaign where they lost in the final to a very robust and well-drilled Villareal side in a penalty shoot-out. This clearly emphasises the rising influence of the tournament. There is also an element of respect too as there are sides that may not get much attention but this stage allows them to compete with some high-level opposition and gives them a real chance of experiencing European glory with value at the end of its - progression into the next season's champions league group stage.

This season (22/23) is bound to be another great and competitive year with the likes of Man Utd, Arsenal, Mourinho's Roma, Feyenoord, PSV, and Betis who all are Champions League quality clubs. Therefore it is definitely going to be a tournament that should provide exciting and surprising moments in the end as in football who knows what will happen next?