Status: 30.08.2024 15:01
1. FC Heidenheim will face a big name in its European Cup debut in the Conference League: Two-time Champions League winners FC Chelsea are coming to Heidenheim.
Heidenheim will host the star ensemble from Stamford Bridge at home. This was the result of the draw on Friday (30.08.2024) for the new season in the Europa Conference League at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
The Heidenheim team were drawn against Turkish club Basaksehir, Olimpija Ljubljana, St. Gallen, Hearts of Midlothian and Pafos FC from Cyprus as further opponents.
The exact fixtures and game dates will be announced by Saturday evening.
Conference League also in new format
Similar to the Champions League, the other two European club competitions will also be played in a new format, in which a league format replaces the group phase.
In the so-called hybrid draw, a ball was drawn by hand in the traditional way to first determine a club, which was then automatically assigned opponents using special computer software.
New mode with 36 teams, league phase and knockout round
In the new mode with the league phase, there are no home and away games in the preliminary round. Each of the 36 clubs in the Conference League plays three home and three away games against six different clubs. The software also determines which games each club plays at home and which it plays away. In the end, each team has its own schedule.
Clubs from the same country are not allowed to meet each other in the league phase, at least in principle, and a club’s opponents may only include a maximum of two teams from the same country.
Similar to the new format in the Champions League, the best eight teams after the preliminary round of the league reach the round of 16. The 16 teams in places 9 – 24 play in an intermediate round to determine the remaining eight participants in the round of 16. Twelve teams are eliminated. In the intermediate round and the round of 16, home advantage depends on the league position, from the quarter-finals onwards it is drawn by lot.
