Conference League

The Europa Conference League was dismissed as irrelevant when it kicked off last summer. Try telling that to the clubs that can win it.

It does not just have to be the same four, five or six teams from the same four, five or six leagues.” “It is quite expensive, but the destinations are part of the attraction,” Ravenhorst said. Nobody is complaining about the lack of history or glamour, not anymore. That parity has not necessarily come at the expense of quality. “It is a chance to achieve something monumental in our club’s history,” he said. “The level is high, and the games are between opponents who are more or less equal,” Kyriakos said. He has seen his beloved Feyenoord play in the sleepy Swedish town of Boras and the firecracker hostility of Belgrade, Serbia. He has been to Prague, twice. To the fans who are following the Conference League, the relative unfamiliarity of the teams involved has not diminished the tournament. The Europa League has, traditionally, been a little more diverse, but in recent years that, too, has been increasingly vulnerable to the massive financial advantage enjoyed by teams from Western Europe’s grand leagues. The lineup for the inaugural quarterfinals illustrates that perfectly. Europe’s major leagues saw it as another burden, players’ organizations worried that it would increase the risk of burnout and fan groups grumbled about yet another expense for those who wished to follow their teams. The Europa Conference League was dismissed as irrelevant when it kicked off last summer.