Celtic will find out tomorrow their second qualifying round Champions League opponents when the new UEFA season kicks into action.
Four teams will be involved in the first round draw with the two winners joining 30 other clubs in the second round with the draw carried out live on uefa.com starting at 11am Celtic Park time.
Assuming that UEFA follow the practice of previous seasons the second round draw will be split into three georgraphical groups to cut down on travel and expenses.
With that being the case Celtic will be placed in the northern group with five or six likely opponents. Celtic will be seeded at this stage and will remain seeded assuming that they qualify through the second and third rounds.
Joining Celtic among the northern seeds will be Elfsborg (Sweden), Molde (Norway), HJK Helsinki (Finland), Ekranus (Lithuania) and possibly one other club depending on how UEFA wish to draw up the boundaries with eastern and central groups.
More importantly the teams that Celtic are likely to be drawn against are Cliftonville, Sligo Rovers, The New Saints (Wales), FH (Iceland), Daugava (Latvia), Nomme Kalju (Estonia).
The first three clubs should provide for a relatively straightforward passage into the third qualifying round with the bonus of easy transport for the team and also supporters.
The remaining clubs are all in mid-season, as are Sligo Rovers, but shouldn’t provide too much resistance to Celtic following their pre-season trip to Germany with new signings Amido Balde and Virgil van Dijk settling in quickly.
Looking forward to the action getting underway Kris Commons said: “I’m not really fussed who we get – Irish, Welsh, Icelandic, it doesn’t really matter to us.
“We will do enough research on the team and identify where we can beat them, so it’s like any other game in Europe where we’ll be looking forward to it.”
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Cliftonville would be a great trip, we should be playing them every preseason great club with great supporters. Wales would be good aswell HH
I hate the qualifiers. My finger nails still haven’t grown back from last years.
Like Mark says though, this first one could be enjoyable.
really hope its cliftonville/solitude, this city needs a lift this time of year,
and i’ve a soft spot for the reds but i wish they’d take the derry route and go league of ireland.
I hope its sligo rovers, firstly brother walfrid came from county sligo and so did my old man
It would be great if we get Sligo ROVER Good for us to go to play them in the free state Good PR for us also
Di Canio used to love them at subbuteo