Aston Villa remain on the unseeded side of the Europa Conference League play-off round draw following Sevilla’s victory over Roma on Wednesday night.
The Spanish club overcame Jose Mourinho’s side in the Europa League final in a penalty shootout following a 1-1 draw at the Puskas Arena in Budapest. The win sees Sevilla enter the Champions League, which has a knock on effect for Aston Villa.
Villa qualified for the Europa Conference League via a seventh place Premier League finish, but in order to reach the group stages of the competition, they must first get through a two-legged play-off in August.
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Who Unai Emery’s team faces will depend on if they are seeded or unseeded for the draw which takes place on August 7. Seeded teams will only be able to face unseeded teams in the play-offs and vice versa.
According to UEFA Rankings, Villa’s coefficient is projected to be 21.799, which means, at the moment they are projected to be unseeded for the draw. That would have been different if Roma had beaten Sevilla, with Villa then expected to have moved into the seeded teams.
There is still a good possibility of Villa entering the draw as a seeded team though. As explained by UEFA Rankings , there are three different scenarios that would see Villa move up a place in the rankings and therefore be seeded for a draw.
The first would be CFR 1907 Cluj losing the Romanian UECK play-off finals later today (Thursday), while Villa could also move up the ranks if Basaksehir lose the Turkish Cup final which takes place on June 11.
There are also teams taking place in the second qualifying round, with only one on the projected nine teams on the seeded side needing to lose for Villa to move into the seeded section.
There is however a scenario where Villa could move one place down on the unseeded list, if FC Midtjylland win the Danish European play-offs. Should that happen, then Villa would need two of the earlier scenarios to happen in order for them to be seeded.
There is also uncertainty about the inclusion of Italian giants Juventus in the competition. The Serie A side were deducted 10 points, but are on course to finish in either sixth or seventh place in the table. Should they finish seventh, then they will be included in the seeded teams for the Europa Conference League. However, it has been reported via Football Italia that the club could be banned from UEFA competitions due to reported Financial Fair Play violations. It is reported that UEFA are set to deliver their verdict later this month.
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