The 2012–13 UEFA Europa League group stage featured 48 teams: the 7 automatic qualifiers, the 31 winners of the play-off round, and the 10 losing teams from the Champions League play-off round.

The teams were drawn into twelve groups of four, and played each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The top two teams in each group advanced to the round of 32, where they were joined by the eight third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage.

Teams The draw for the group stage was held on 31 August 2012, 13:00 CEST (UTC+2), at Grimaldi Forum, Monaco.

Teams were seeded into four pots based on their 2012 UEFA club coefficients. The title holders, Atlético Madrid, were automatically seeded into Pot 1.

Key to colours in group tablesGroup winners and runners-up advance to the round of 32

+Pot 1TeamNotes Atlético Madrid 100.837 Internazionale 104.996 Lyon 94.835 Liverpool 90.882 Marseille 85.835 Sporting CP 82.069 PSV Eindhoven 76.103 Tottenham Hotspur 66.882 Bayer Leverkusen 60.037 Bordeaux 58.835 Twente 57.103 VfB Stuttgart 55.037+Pot 2TeamNotes Basel 53.360 Metalist Kharkiv 52.526 Panathinaikos 50.920 Athletic Bilbao 47.837 Copenhagen 46.505 Fenerbahçe 41.310 Rubin Kazan 40.566 Napoli 39.996 Udinese 38.996 Club Brugge 35.480 Hapoel Tel Aviv 31.400 Hannover 96 31.037+Pot 3TeamNotes Lazio 29.996 Steaua București 26.764 Sparta Prague 25.570 Rosenborg 20.935 Newcastle United 16.882 Young Boys 16.860 Levante 16.837 Genk 16.480 Borussia Mönchengladbach 15.037 Partizan 14.350 Viktoria Plzeň 14.070 Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk 14.026+Pot 4TeamNotes Helsingborgs IF 12.680 Marítimo 12.569 Rapid Wien 12.225 Académica 11.069 Anzhi Makhachkala 9.566 Maribor 6.424 AIK 5.680 AEL Limassol 5.099 Ironi Kiryat Shmona 4.400 Molde 3.935 Videoton 3.450 Neftçi 2.241 Notes

Each group contained one team from each of the four pots, with the restriction that teams from the same national association cannot be drawn against each other. Moreover, the draw was controlled for teams from the same association in order to split the teams evenly into the two sets of groups (A–F, G–L) for maximum television coverage.

The fixtures were decided after the draw. On each matchday, six groups played their matches at 19:00 CET/CEST, while the other six groups played their matches at 21:05 CET/CEST, with the two sets of groups (A–F, G–L) alternating between each matchday. There were other restrictions, e.g., teams from the same city in general did not play at home on the same matchday (UEFA tries to avoid teams from the same city playing at home on the same day or on consecutive days), and Russian teams did not play at home on the last matchday due to cold weather.

Tiebreakers The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings: higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question; superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question; higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question; higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question; If, after applying criteria 1) to 4) to several teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1) to 4) are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 6) to 8) apply; superior goal difference from all group matches played; higher number of goals scored from all group matches played; higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons.

Groups The matchdays were 20 September, 4 October, 25 October, 8 November, 22 November, and 6 December 2012.

Times up to 27 October 2012 (matchdays 1–3) are CEST (UTC+2), thereafter (matchdays 4–6) times are CET (UTC+1).

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Group I

Group J

Group K

Group L

Notes

References

External links 2012–13 UEFA Europa League, UEFA.com