THIS year’s league phase for the 2025/26 Europa League is expected to have a lot of twists and turns – and it all starts with the thrilling draw.Tottenham ended 17 years of pain by pipping bitter Premier League rivals Manchester United to last year’s Europa League crown.AFPTottenham won last year’s Europa League competition[/caption]As a result, Spurs secured automatic Champions League qualification and paved the way for another two English teams to have a shot at doing the same thing.Aston Villa will be in the hat for the league phase after finishing sixth in the Premier League.While Nottingham Forest replaced a Crystal Palace side who were relegated from Europe’s second-tier competition.Palace initially qualified for the Europa League after beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final, but their spot got snatched away from them after breaching UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules.Eagle Football Holdings – owned by John Textor – holds stakes in both Palace and Lyon, and Uefa rules state that clubs owned to a certain threshold of influence by the same person or entity cannot compete in the same European competition.The two English sides will be hoping to replicate Spurs and bring the Europa League back to England for a second successive time.Scottish giants Celtic and Rangers will play Europa League football next term after falling in Champions League qualifying.But first up is the league phase, and SunSport can bring you the all-important details ahead of the draw.When is the Europa League draw?The draw for the league phase of the 2025/26 Europa League will take place on Friday, August 29.It is scheduled to get underway at 12pm BST.Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo, Monaco is the chosen venue for the draw.The Europa League draw will happen on the same day as the Conference League draw with two being combined into one single show.How to watch the Europa League draw for FREE and is there a live stream?The 2025/26 Europa League draw will be broadcast LIVE on UEFA.com.TNT Sports 1 will also air the draw on regular TV.The broadcaster will provide a FREE live stream via the TNT Sports YouTube channel.Alternatively, you can discover all the confirmed ties by following SunSport’s live blog of the draw.What is the Europa League format?There will be a league phase, and it will follow the same procedure as last year, when a new format was introduced.Each of the 36 participating teams will be split into four pots based on their club’s European coefficient ranking.All teams will be manually drawn using physical balls, before automated software decides eight opponents for them.Every side will be pitted against two clubs from each pot, one of which will be played at home and the other away.Teams from the same country cannot be drawn against each other, and can only play two sides from the same country during the league phase.The draw will start with Pot 1, with teams assigned opponents one-by-one and continuing into all other pots until every team discovers their fate.Europa League draw teams and potsThe teams and pots are not confirmed until the qualifying matches have concluded.Europa League, league phase datesThe first games of the Europa League league phase will take place on Wednesday, September 24th and Thursday 25th.Matchday 1: September 24-25, 2025Matchday 2: October 2, 2025Matchday 3: October 23, 2025Matchday 4: November 6, 2025Matchday 5: November 27, 2025Matchday 6: December 11, 2025Matchday 7: January 22, 2026Matchday 8: January 29, 2026