Who Has the Toughest Games?

With the Europa League group stage draw completed and fixture dates and times now decided, we use the Opta Power Rankings to assess the difficulty of each team’s fixtures.

The draw for the new-look Europa League group stage was completed on Friday, and following a weekend of fitting everyone’s schedule together, the fixture list has now been compiled.

So, now we know which eight sides everyone will face and when, we’ve assessed the difficulty of each team’s group stage opponents using Opta’s Power Rankings.

The Opta Power Rankings compare 13,000 domestic football teams around the world on the same scale, giving each a score between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.

So, just like we did for last week’s Champions League draw, we’ve used these scores to give an average difficulty rating to each of the 36 participants’ eight Europa League opponents. In other words, we’ve rated the difficulty of each team’s opponents to see who has the easiest draw, and who has the toughest.

Here are the results.

Who Has the Easiest Europa League Draw?

Turkish champions Galatasaray last month lost a two-legged Champions League play-off against Young Boys, but have been given the not-to-be-sniffed-at consolation of the easiest draw in the Europa League group stage.

Set to face opponents including Latvian side RFS and two Swedish teams in Elfsborg and Malmö, the average rating of Galatasaray’s opponents is, according to our Power Rankings, 82.4 out of 100 – lower than any other team in the competition.

Qarabag (Azerbaijan), Olympiakos (Greece), FCSB (Romania) and RFS (Latvia) are next in the list for the friendliest Europa League group stage schedules, followed by one of two Premier League representatives in Tottenham.

Spurs face winnable fixtures against Qarabag, Elfsborg and Ferencvaros, as well as some more well-known and potentially more difficult opponents in Roma, Rangers, and Galatasaray. With an average difficulty rating of 83.6, only five teams have been given a kinder draw than Tottenham.

As for the other of the Premier League’s contingent, Manchester United are also towards the easier end of things, with an average opponent rating of 84.3. They face FC Twente, PAOK Salonika and FCSB among others, as well as two much tougher-looking games against Porto and Fenerbahçe.

Who Has the Toughest Europa League Draw?

At the other end of the scale, lowly Elfsborg, who are ranked 160th in the world according to our Power Rankings – three places below Ipswich – and last made it into the group stage of a European competition in 2013-14, have been rewarded with the toughest draw in the whole competition.

Set to face Roma, Galatasataray, Tottenham, Athletic Club and Nice, their opponents’ average rating is 86.2 – higher than any other side.

Bulgarian side Ludogorets and Turkish giants Fenerbahçe appear next in the list of the most difficult Europa League schedules, followed by Porto – who face Manchester United, Lazio, Olympiakos – and AZ Alkmaar.

Scottish side Rangers are in lower-mid-table when it comes to the difficulty of their fixtures, with their eight opponents towards the slightly tougher end of things.

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