The Europa League draw offered a tough squad for Olympique de Marseille, including Ajax and Brighton. Rennes will challenge Villarreal, while Toulouse will find Liverpool.
Olympique de Marseille were not spoiled by the Europa League draw. Placed in hat 2, the Phocaeans first inherited Ajax, but it was then that things went wrong with the arrivals in this group B of Brighton and AEK Athens, two of the most to be feared from pots 3 and 4. Marcelino’s men, who fell from a height in the preliminary round of the Champions League, will clearly not have it easy in C3.
For its part, Stade Rennais inherited a fairly homogeneous group, and far from obvious. The Bretons will be opposed to Villarreal, the top seed of F, then to Maccabi Haifa. The fourth team is Panathinaikos, who beat OM in the Champions League.
Finally, Toulouse could also expect something heavy with its position in pot 4. The TFC will be entitled to a prestigious trip to Liverpool, as in the preliminary round of the Champions League in 2007, at the time of Johan Elmander and Elie Baup. The winners of the Coupe de France will also face the Austrians of LASK Linz and the Belgians of Union Saint-Gilloise, against whom they could have a card to play.
We know the groups of French clubs in the Europa League! 🚨🔥
Marseille in the most complicated group? 🥵 pic.twitter.com/SHjv3aCNQH
— French Football Weekly (@football_fr) September 1, 2023
The eight groups of the Europa League
Group A: West Ham, Olympiakos, Freiburg, Backa Topola
Group B: Ajax Amsterdam, Marseille, Brighton, AEK Athens
Group C: Rangers, Betis Sevilla, Sparta Prague, Aris Limassol
Group D: Atalanta, Sporting Portugal, Sturm Graz, Rakow Czestochowa
Group E: Liverpool, Linz, Union Saint-Gilloise, Toulouse
Group F: Villarreal, Rennes, Maccabi Haifa, Panathinaikos
Group G: AS Roma, Slavia Prague, Sheriff Tiraspol, Servette Geneva
Group H: Leverkusen, Qarabag, Molde, Häcken
