Does seeding matter in the Europa League?

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The Europa League odds for 2026/27 suggest that Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Sunderland may struggle to make it a hat-trick of English champions, with Juventus, AC Milan and Bayer Leverkusen all currently ahead of them in the betting.

Marseille, Lyon and Benfica will also fancy their chances of winning this prestigious competition, so we can expect plenty of competitive matches between now and the end of the season.

Last term, eventual champions Aston Villa snuck into the first seeding pot as the ninth-ranked side, whilst runners-up Freiburg were ranked 22nd and found themselves in the third of the four seeding pots.

Ahead of the new campaign getting under way on Wednesday 16th September, this got us to wondering if the League Phase of the 2025/26 competition offered any clues as to how important the seeding pots actually are?

HOME RECORD OF POT 1 TEAMS IN 2025/26

Pot 1 was made up of teams from Italy, Portugal, Scotland, Netherlands, France, Croatia, Spain, Austria and England, thus providing a fairly eclectic mix.

As you might expect, these sides were truly dominant in home games against Pot 3 and Pot 4 clubs, winning 15 of 18 matches and outscoring their opponents by 35 goals to 14.

Although Porto, Real Betis and Aston Villa claimed maximum points on their own patch against Pot 1 and Pot 2 teams, the remaining six clubs in this section managed just two wins between them from 12 home games against this increased standard of opposition.

Looking ahead to the current campaign, Matchday 1 features five fixtures in which Pot 1 sides will play in front of their own supporters. If you are looking for football accumulator tips, then the evidence of last season suggests that four of these hosts have an excellent chance of coming out on top:

HOME RECORD OF POT 2 TEAMS IN 2025/26

As was the case in Pot 1, Pot 2 was made up of teams from nine different member associations, these being Turkey, Portugal, Serbia, France, Greece, Czechia, Hungary, Scotland and Israel.

Pot 2 teams were at their best in home games against Pot 3 sides, winning seven of nine matches and conceding only six goals, half of which were let in during rock-bottom Maccabi Tel Aviv’s 3-0 defeat at the hands of Midtjylland.

Interestingly, whilst three clubs from the top seeding pot exited the competition at the end of the League Phase, the Israeli outfit were the only ones not to at least reach the Knockout Phase Playoffs from this section.

Last season, five of the nine meetings between Pot 2 sides ended all-square. There are two such contests amongst the three that feature Pot 2 teams on their own patch on Matchday 1 of the current campaign, so this is something to consider in the win draw win betting market:

HOME RECORD OF POT 3 TEAMS IN 2025/26

BSC Young Boys and Basel were both flying the flag for Switzerland in Pot 3, along with teams from Denmark, Germany, Bulgaria, England, Austria, Romania and France.

Midtjylland were the standout performers in this section, winning all four of their home games against Sturm Graz (2-0), Celtic (3-1), Genk (1-0) and Dinamo Zagreb (2-0) to secure an unexpected third-place finish in the League Phase.

Strangely, only three of the 36 home matches played by Pot 3 sides finished on level terms, with these being Sturm Graz 0-0 Nottingham Forest, Ludogorets Razgrad 3-3 PAOK and FCSB 1-1 Fenerbahce.

When it comes to free football tips ahead of Matchday 1 of the 2026/27 campaign, you could do worse than backing Sunderland to beat AZ Alkmaar at what promises to be an atmospheric Stadium of Light. In fact, Pot 3 teams triumphed in six of their nine home matches against Pot 1 opposition in 2025/26 and this is the only such pairing as the competition gets under way:

HOME RECORD OF POT 4 TEAMS IN 2025/26

Pot 4 featured two Dutch clubs in the shape of Go Ahead Eagles and Utrecht, with this duo being joined by sides from Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, Sweden, Belgium and Norway.

Although the presence of Bologna, Celta Vigo and Stuttgart in this lowest seeding pot gave it a stronger feel than might be expected, it was still surprising to see that Pot 4 teams went undefeated in nine home matches against Pot 1 opposition.

In fact, the 19 points that were earned across these David versus Goliath matchups were the most managed by any of the four seeding pots when the Pot 1 sides came to town.

Besiktas, now managed by Vincenzo Italiano, find themselves in Pot 4 in 2026/27 and, unlike the other five clubs in this section that start with home fixtures, they are playing host to a top seed on Matchday 1. Given what transpired in 2025/26, backing the Turkish outfit to avoid defeat against Marseille seems like a sensible double chance bet:

THOUGHTS

During the 2025/26 Europa League campaign, four of the eight automatic qualifiers for the last 16 came from Pot 1, with two from Pot 2, two from Pot 3 and none from Pot 4.

Now, whilst the quality of each pot will vary from season to season, this still suggests that backing a top-eight finisher from Pot 3 is well worth considering, with the football odds today making it most conducive to go with Crystal Palace.

What’s more, four of the eight quarter-finalists in last season’s competition came from the bottom two seeding pots, albeit that this quartet of teams played their football in Germany, England, Italy and Spain.

By that logic, Crystal Palace (3), Bournemouth (3), Sunderland (3), Celta Vigo (3) and Hoffenheim (4) should all have designs on making some serious progress in 2026/27.

In summary, the seeding pots don’t appear to be all that important in Europe’s secondary competition, with the strength of a club’s domestic league appearing to have a much greater bearing on how far they advance.