No, not the Uefa Champions League. You thought I was going to go there, right?

Not the Asian Champions League … not anyone’s champions league.

My favorite annual soccer competition is … the Europa League!

And here is why:

–It is egalitarian. The Uefa Champions League is hogged by teams from Europe’s four or five biggest leagues. This year? The group phase, of 32 teams, has four from England, four from Spain, three from France, Germany and Portugal. Five countries, 17 of the 32 teams.

The Europa League, however, is hugely inclusive.  Teams from Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Azerbaijan, Israel, Macedonia, Kazakhstan and Georgia have played in the current edition of the Europa League.

–Many of those teams lead you on a journey of discovery. Who are those guys? Where are they at? Has that club been around for a long time? Done anything?

Consider: Academica, Viktoria Plzen, AEL Limossal, Maritimo, Molde, AIK, Videoton, Rubin Kazan, Maribor and Rosenborg are in the tournament — and all of them are in the 48-team group stage. Some even more obscure teams played earlier.

Don’t you want to know where those clubs come from? And isn’t it great fun when one of them plays the fourth- or fifth-place team from a big league? Like Liverpool and Anzhi Makhachkala this week.

Who is Anzhi? A club based in Dagestan, which plays in the Russian League, and is owned by one of the world’s richest men, who likes to spend a lot of money on famous players and has put together an interesting team. Samuel Eto’o, etc.

The problem with playing in Dagestan is that it’s not quite safe, so their team trains in Moscow and flies 1,000 miles for “home” games.

The Champions League doesn’t offer many of those. The cute little underdog versus overdog in the Champs League this week is “bitsy” (comparitively) Ajax of Holland playing Premier League champion Manchester City.

The Europa League, yes, is basically the competition for the teams not good enough to play in the Champions League. It’s for the teams who are something like 50-120 in the club rankings of Europe.

But those often are the interesting teams. With lots of local players. Who play in little stadiums yet have devoted fans who look forward to the concept of their team playing in some faraway place. They just don’t have tons of money, most of them.

I love that competition.

At a budget meeting the other day, at The National, I was pitching a story we were running about the Europa League, and I had made a list of the exotic sides playing in the group stage, and did a little impromptu quiz of the table, asking the home country of the various teams … and most of the editors just looked at me like I had lost my mind (and one, a former sports guy, knew most of them) … and I kept going until one of the senior editors asked me to please stop.

I am looking forward to Thursday night, when I can choose among a dozen Europa League games on Al Jazeera Sports. Not often you get a chance to look at AEL Limassol play Fenerbahce.

And the payoff in the Europa League? By the time they shake it all out, two pretty good teams are in the final. Atletico Madrid, Porto and Shaktar Donetsk are the most recent winners.  And among the losers were Braga, Fulham and Werder Bremen.

This is great fun. Really. It is. Like a sports travelogue inside your own living room.