2017/18 Europa League

Everyone's favourite European trophy has also been drawn. The British and Irish fixtures in the first qualifying round look like this:

Odd BK v Ballymena Utd
Crusaders v FK Liepaja
FK Haugesund v Coleraine
FC Midtjylland v Derry City
Stjarnan v Shamrock Rovers
Levadia Tallinn v Cork City
St Johnstone v Trakai
Bala Town v Vaduz
Connah's Quay Nomads v HJK Helsinki
Rangers v Progrès Niederkorn
Lyngby v Bangor City

With arguably Derry City getting the toughest of the draws there. Hopefully a few will progress!

Hope the Israeli teams can actually surprise me this year.

Tough draw for both Ballymena and Coleraine but I'm quietly confident Crusaders can progress if they can win @ Seaview.

Rangers shouldn't on paper have any problems progressing against, well, Progres.

hello darkness my old friend

A mixed bag of first leg results. Some big wins for the British teams, but equally some even bigger loses.

Crusaders did manage an impressive 3-1 victory. Ballymena humped 3-0 away and Coleraine conceded 7 away from home! Don't see either turning those scores around at home.

Rangers only just managed to sneak a win too!

Coleraine were without their first choice 'keeper for last night's game.

Great wins for Cork and Shamrock Rovers away from home, shame Derry were well beaten but then again it's a very good team in Midtjylland.

Rangers knocked out by Luxembourg's Progres Niederkorn...who lost their first choice keeper after 32 minutes. Jesus.

An absolutely embarrassing result, not just for Rangers but for Scottish Football as a whole.

I don't know, it's hard to top this.

Pretty sure we still went through.

Fucking immense, put a 10er on them to score a second aswell, easy 95 quid back.

Had the great displeasure of watching both of those games. Made non-league football look like something Johan Cruyff invented.

I seriously don't know what is wrong with that team? I know they signed a ton of random foreigners from Mexico and Portugal, who might need so time to settle, but seriously the Luexmbourg units are part-timers (I believe) and they should have beaten them easily over two ties

They'd previously scored 1 goal in 13 fixtures in Europe, but manage to put two past Rangers in 10 minutes!

Much worse than the Celtic result against the Lincoln Red Imps, at least they turned it around to progress, as it were.

Just shows how tricky these little teams can be to go and play at theirs, as we see occasionally in the FA Cup. The game being at the start of pre-season surely doesn't help the professional teams either. There should be no excuses though.

I see plenty more British teams falling after the first legs!

Know very little about this current Rangers team but I get the impression that Caixinha is a dud.

Aberdeen v Apollon Limassol and Everton v Ruzomberok are the British teams for tonight.

Everton game tonight live on ITV4 btw for UK members.

What an absolute load of shite it was.

Second leg is also on ITV4 tonight, God I hope it's a better game!

Wasn't an improvement!

Everton through though, shame Aberdeen fell apart and couldn't do enough to join them in tomorrow's draw.

Draws at 12pm so we can see who Everton will bore us to death against in the next round.

Only realised today that the final is in Lyon (still think of us being in the CL ffs), surely that means we'll make the final and Lacazette will grab a hat-trick to win us the trophy at his old club...

Everton v Hajduk Split, the Croatians.

Wait for Ludogorets Uefa Europa League ! I hope we can achieve something in Europa League this season its not that difficult draw FC Suduva

Everton making seemingly light work of Hajduk tonight it seems. Thought this would be more of a struggle tbh

They were definitely much better than in the earlier round. As the game was getting close to an end Hajduk definitely grew into it and were creating some good chances. Everton could easily have had double the amount they scored, though.

The Hajduk fans went from being really good and creating an atmosphere then all of a sudden they started in-fighting, ripping up chairs, kicking down advertising boards and trying to rush the stewards and police to get on the pitch. Mental.

Second leg, here we go. Live on ITV4 for those in the UK. Everton are playing in an ugly kit though.

Gylfi gets his debut!

https://www.sporttube.com/play/50dCCCG

We just beat last year's finalists Ajax for fucking hell fucks sake!!! \o/

Final groups
Europa League group stage draw
Group A: Villarreal, Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Astana, Slavia Prague

Group B: Dynamo Kiev, Young Boys, Partizan Belgrade, Skenderbeu

Group C: Braga, Ludogorets, Hoffenheim, Istanbul Basaksehir

Group D: AC Milan, Austria Vienna, NK Rijeka, AEK Athens

Group E: Lyon, Everton,Atalanta, Apollon Limassol

Group F: FC Copenhagen, Lokomotiv Moscow, Sheriff Tiraspol, FC Zlin

Group G: Viktoria Plzen, Steaua Bucharest, Hapoel Beer-Sheva, FC Lugano

Group H: Arsenal,BATE Borisov, Cologne, Red Star Belgrade

Group I: Salzburg, Marseille, Vitoria Guimaraes, Konyaspor

Group J: Athletic Bilbao, Hertha Berlin, Zorya Luhansk, Ostersunds

Group K: Lazio, Nice, Zulte Waregem, Vitesse Arnhem.

Group L: Zenit, Real Sociedad, Rosenborg, Vardar Skopje

FC Koln fans fighting amongst themselves in London this evening! pic.twitter.com/OuEqPZv3Wj

— Football Fights (@footbalIfights) September 14, 2017

Spectacular scenes earlier today in London as @fckoeln fans flooded the streets in immense numbers. #ARSKOE #UEL https://t.co/lMHbNEuSZ4 pic.twitter.com/WfLnlf4fOH

— StadiumDB.com (@StadiumDB) September 14, 2017