As the first week of the UEFA European League ended, we wanted to cover the important moments of the matches of the week, the standings and especially the state of the Turkish teams.
Starting with the history of the Union of European Football Associations, commonly known as the UEFA, would be an important introduction to the league itself. The UEFA was established more than 70 years ago in Basel, Switzerland with the aim of uniting the Europan game in a spirit of solidarity to develop the game on and off the field. To delve deeper, in June 1954, a world football body, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), allowed the creation of continental football confederations. Europe’s national associations met to establish the formation of a pan-European football body and contribute to the rise of a footballing Europe that will be improving over the years.
The 2024-2025 season started with some changes in the format. This was the first alteration to the general structure of the competition since the 2003-2004 season, which was the season the round of 16 was introduced. From now on, the league will feature 36 teams and it will have a league system instead of a stage system. With this format, each team is playing 8 matches with 4 teams, 4 of them being home and the other 4 being away games. The results of the matches determine the ranking of the league according to the point system (Win: 3 points, Tie: 1 point, Lose: 0 points).
After the first week, the ranking’s first eight teams are as follows. The only Turkish team in the top 8 is Galatasaray, with 3 points after a 3-1 win in the match played with the Greek team PAOK. In the match, a PAOK player scored an own goal and Yunus Akgün as well as Mauro Icardi were able to score goals in the second half of the match.
Another Turkish team that made it to this round, Fenerbahçe, is in 11th place, after the win in their match with Union SG. Again, Union SG scored an own goal in the match, while Fenerbahçe was able to score one goal with Çağlar Söyüncü to end the match with a score of 2-1. In the match, one player of both teams saw a red card, Bright Osayi Samuel from the Turkish team and Kevin Mac Allister from the Belgian team.
Moreover, Beşiktaş is on the 36th place, coming last after their match with the Dutch team Ajax that ended up in a 4-0 loss of Beşiktaş. The high goal difference made Ajax the leader.
There were also some well-known teams that experienced a draw in their first week matches. These prominent teams include Manchester United from Premier League, Real Sociedad from La Liga, AS Roma from Serie A and Nice from Ligue 1. This also shows that the European league really does have a diversity among different countries.
It is important to mention some all-time statistics. The highest scorers of all time were Larsson, Aubameyang and Huntelaar with 40, 37 and 34 goals respectively. The teams with the most trophies are Sevilla with 7 and Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and Liverpool with 3 trophies. These trophies are a significant figure in football and it demonstrates great effort and success of a team. The winner of the 2023-2024 season was the prominent figure of the Italian footbal league, Serie A, Atalanta.
The first week came to an end with these scores and the following weeks will be determining the winner of the trophy.
Edited by: Ömer Gökce, Oya Yamaç