On Friday, the pairings for the second round of the Europa League playoffs will be revealed. The event will take place in Nyon, a suburb of Geneva, where the House of European Football is located. Eight participants in the upcoming stage were determined back in November of last year, as they topped their respective groups during the group stage. This format has been applied since the previous season, following the introduction of the Europa Conference League, which led to a reduction in the number of teams in the main Europa League tournament.

The draw for the Europa League 1/8 finals draw can be watched online, and it will pair seeded and unseeded teams. The first category includes clubs that have advanced to the playoffs in first place. The second half of the participants will be determined based on the results of the knockout matches, where teams eliminated from the Champions League and the second-place teams from the Europa League group stage will compete. In the current edition, the directly qualified teams for the Round of 16 are Spanish clubs Real Betis and Real Sociedad, English club Arsenal, Dutch side Feyenoord, German team Freiburg, Belgian club St. Gilloise, Turkish team Fenerbahçe, and Hungarian club Ferencváros. Among these, only the La Liga teams have made it to the Europa League playoffs in the previous edition, but they had to go through the knockout stage back then. The draw for the Europa League 1/8 finals draw can be watched online.

In the knockout matches, Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk are also participating, having won their first leg against Rennes with a score of 2-1. It's worth noting that in two out of the three previous tournaments, Shakhtar successfully advanced to the next stage. The first round features the most representatives from the Eredivisie (Ajax and PSV), Serie A (Juventus and Roma), and the Spanish La Liga (Barcelona and Sevilla).

As a reminder, clubs from the same association are still not allowed to face each other in the Round of 16. The first-leg matches will be played on the field of the unseeded teams. The matches are scheduled for March 9th and 16th. On the 17th, the draw for the quarterfinals and semifinals will take place. The draw for the Europa League Round of 16 can be watched online.