Crystal Palace draw Real Sociedad, Lyon and Beşiktaş in Europa League league phase

Crystal Palace will begin their first Europa League campaign with a league-phase schedule featuring home meetings with Real Sociedad and Hoffenheim and demanding trips to Lyon, Salzburg and Beşiktaş.

Palace entered Friday’s draw in Pot 3 after qualifying directly for the competition as 2025/26 Conference League winners, giving the club another European campaign immediately after lifting its first continental trophy.

Their four matches at Selhurst Park will come against Real Sociedad, Sparta Prague, Lech Poznań and Hoffenheim. Away from home, Palace will travel to Lyon, Salzburg, Jagiellonia and Beşiktaş.

Real Sociedad provide the standout home fixture.

The Spanish side were seeded in Pot 1 and should offer one of the clearest measures of how effectively Palace can transfer last season’s Conference League success into a stronger European competition.

The away schedule is more demanding.

Lyon represent the highest-profile trip, while Salzburg offer a different challenge through their intensity and established European experience. A visit to Beşiktaş also carries obvious difficulty given the atmosphere Palace can expect in Istanbul.

Those three fixtures could have a significant influence on whether Palace are able to challenge for direct qualification to the round of 16.

There are opportunities elsewhere.

Sparta Prague and Hoffenheim should both provide competitive nights at Selhurst Park, while Lech Poznań give Palace another home fixture in which taking maximum points could become important. The trip to Jagiellonia, meanwhile, is less prominent in name but still adds another unfamiliar away environment to the schedule.

The wider significance of the draw is difficult to separate from Palace’s trajectory in Europe.

Their Conference League triumph secured automatic entry into this season’s Europa League league phase, meaning the club have moved directly from winning UEFA’s third-tier competition into an eight-match campaign against stronger and more varied opposition.

That raises the benchmark.

Under the 36-team format, the top eight sides advance directly to the round of 16, while teams finishing between ninth and 24th must play an additional two-legged knockout play-off.

Palace therefore have enough opportunity in their home programme to build a competitive points total, but their ceiling may ultimately be determined by what they can take from Lyon, Salzburg and Istanbul.

The league phase begins on September 16 and 17 and concludes on January 28, with UEFA still to confirm the exact order and kick-off times of Palace’s eight fixtures.