Europa League Draw

Arsenal, Celtic, Chelsea, Inter and Napoli were amongst the teams to find out their fate in the Europa League after the draw for the second round took place.

During the group stages the Europa League often suffers from some very mismatched games and a lot of teams that don't mean much to the casual European football viewer.

However when it comes to the knockout stages, aided by the addition of those dropping down from the Champions League, the competition really comes alive.

Dropping down this year were Club Brugge, Inter, Napoli, Galatasaray, Benfica, Shakhtar, Viktoria Plzen and Valencia.

Joining those sides were some other top teams in the form of Bayer Leverkusen, Celtic, Zenit, Fenerbache, Arsenal, Sporting, Real Betis, Villarreal, Lazio, Sevilla, Chelsea and many others.

Today they drew the first knockout round of the competition.

Viktoria Plzen vs Dinamo Zagreb

Club Brugge vs FC Salzburg

Rapid Vienna vs Inter

Slavia Prague vs Genk

FC Krasnodar vs Leverkusen

Zurich vs Napoli

Malmo vs Chelsea

Shakhtar vs Frankfurt

Celtic vs Valencia

Stade Rennais vs Real Betis

Olympiakos vs Dynamo Kiev

Lazio vs Sevilla

Fenerbahce vs Zenit

Sporting vs Villarreal

BATE Borisov vs Arsenal

Galatasaray vs Benfica

A different looking Arsenal side beat BATE in 2017. Image: PA Images

Chelsea and Arsenal both got through their groups pretty easily, although they weren't joined by a third English club as Burnley were knocked out in the qualifiers.

Chelsea topped their group, finishing undefeated and picking up 16 points, as they beat BATE, who will face Arsenal, Vidi and PAOK to top spot.

Arsenal had the same record as the Blues as they beat Sporting, Vorskla and Qarabag to top the group.

Celtic had a trickier route to get to the knockout stages. They lost to Salzburg on Matchday Six but RB Leipzig's inability to beat Rosenberg took them through anyway.

Brendan Rodgers and his side made it through. Image: PA Images

The draw has thrown up some really interesting ties, not least for Celtic who will travel to the Mestalla.

Topics: Football News, Chelsea, Celtic, Europa League, UEFA, Arsenal, Napoli, Champions League, Inter

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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