The 2010/11 season of the Europa League is the second one after it has changed some rules, regulations and its name from its predecessor, the UEFA Cup. The winner of the first edition of the Europa League was Atletico Madrid, which beat Fulham  FC at the HSH Nordbank Arena, the home stadium of Hamburg SV, in Hamburg, Germany. This year’s final of the Europa League will be played at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. In the 2010/11 Europa League the champions Atletico Madrid, after only half a season being played, have already been eliminated from further competition. This was because they finished third in the group stage behind Bayer Leverkusen from Germany and Aris from Greece. Rosenborg was the fourth in that group B.

In the 2010/11 Europa League a total of 194 teams from 53 different soccer associations will participate. The numbers of teams from each country is not the same, it is based on the 2009 UEFA European league coefficient. This coefficient is calculated based on the performances in previous season of teams from different countries in the Europa League, or the UEFA Cup as it was called before.

There are many ways how teams qualified for the Europa League. The champions were guaranteed a spot because they won it last year, but did not qualify for the Champions League. Other teams entered the Europa league by being runners-up in their domestic leagues or winning the cup in their league. Also, three teams qualified through Fair Play rankings (the teams were from Sweden, Denmark and Finland), which uses in account the number of yellow and red card, the behavior of its fans and team officials and so on. Before the actual competition starts, some teams that were trying to qualify for the Europa League had to pass three preliminary rounds. The rules are that the teams with a higher Europa league coefficient enter the tournament at a later stage, while those with a lower coefficient have to play a lot more games to even enter. This is mostly due to the fact that UEFA wants to have teams from better European leagues in the tournament, so that the viewership would be better. The preliminary rounds, also known as the qualifying, are based on the knockout system. Two teams play each other, at their home stadium and their opponents playground, and whoever is better in those two games based on the number of wins, or goals, proceeds to the next round of the Europa League. If the two teams have the exact number of goals scored, the team that scored most goals as a guest team qualifies for the next round. In the event that that also doesn’t separate the two teams, the winner of the draw, which stays in the Europa League, will be decided through penalty shutout.

At a later stage of the Europa League, to be more precise in the playoff round, the group stage and in the knockout phase, teams from the Champions League qualifiers or the group stage enter the competition. The group stage of the 2010/11 Europa League had 12 groups, from A – L, each group with 4 teams. The top two teams go on in the competition, to the knockout stage which will begin soon. The top scorer or the Europa League so far is Radamel Falcao, a Columbian striker who plays for FC Porto from Portugal.