Crystal Palace will learn their Europa League fate at 12pm BST on Friday, 28 August, but the draw does not yet give them a clean route to map out. Palace are set to be in either pot 2 or 3, and they will discover their opponents this week alongside Bournemouth and Sunderland.

Palace's first Europa League draw

After lifting the Conference League last season, Palace are in the UEFA Europa League for the first time in their history. Their current coefficient has them 85th in UEFA’s rankings for European teams, which is why the seeding still matters so much.

The league phase has 36 teams, so Palace will not be dealing with a traditional group stage. They have already been told they cannot face clubs from their own country at this stage, which removes some obvious domestic crossovers before the balls are even drawn.

The draw still has some heavyweight names in it. Palace’s possible pot 1 opponents include Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus, Milan, AZ Alkmaar and Olympiacos, while Real Sociedad, Marseille, Union Saint-Gilloise, Sparta Prague, Rennes, Sturm Graz, Celta Vigo, Hoffenheim and Torreense are also in the mix.

A club statement said: "Crystal Palace will make more history in Europe this season". That is the backdrop to Friday’s draw, and the seeding will decide how hard the first European league phase looks.

What the seeding means for Palace

The 85th-place UEFA ranking is the awkward part of this story. Palace have the status that comes with a first continental campaign after a trophy win, but not the ranking that usually fixes a smooth seeding path.

That is why pot 2 or 3 matters here. In a 36-team league phase, the draw will define eight opponents, and Palace could end up with a far friendlier set than their ranking suggests, or a much tougher one if the stronger names fall their way.

For Palace, the headline is not just that they are back in Europe. It is that the club’s first Europa League draw arrives with the sort of uncertainty that can make a debut campaign look very different by the time the schedule comes out.

Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 2 outlets. How we work →