Celtic’s opponents for the UEFA Champions League Playoff have been confirmed after results tonight. Brendan Rodgers’ side face a two-legged knockout tie to determine whether they’ll be playing in football’s elite competition this season or whether they’ll be in the Europa League.
Celtic are seeded for the draw, meaning that they will miss a number of good sides and face an unseeded side. Including Swiss side Basel, Austrian outfit Sturm Graz, either Pafos (Cyprus) or Dynamo Kyiv (Ukraine), last year’s UCL opponents Slovan Bratislava or Kairat of Kazakhstan or the winners of Qarabag (Azerbaijan) and Shkendija (Armenia).
The draw takes place on Monday 4th August and Celtic will hope for a favourably draw that will see them included in the League Phase draw in Monaco, on Thursday 28 August.
Each two-legged tie will be played on 19/20 and 26/27 August. Despite being seeded, this will not entitle Celtic to have the second leg at Celtic Park and will leave it to the draw.
Celtic fans may query where Maccabi Tel Aviv and FCSB have gone, having both made up list of likely opponents in the draw. Tel Aviv were knocked out by Cyprus side Pafos while the Romanian Champions were defeated by Shkendija.
There are still some moving parts for the play off draw. Remember, 3 of the seeded teams ranked above us have 3rd round qualifiers to negotiate. It is unlikely but not impossible that 1 or more of those teams are eliminated this would change the unseeded teams as they move up. EG Slovan are the top ranked unseeded teams as they, if they lose Basel take their place as top unseeded team, if this scenario plays out and an unseeded team goes out Basel would join us as a seeded team
Still some moving parts in the play off draw. There could still be changes to the teams we could play depending on results in Q3 ties
Andy- the draw for the play off round is on Monday 4th August, before any of the 3rd round games are played. There won’t be any changes to the teams we can get.