The draw in full
Astana v APOEL, Skenderbeu v Dinamo Zagreb, Celtic v Malmo, Basel v Maccabi Tel Aviv, BATE Borisov v Partizan Belgrade, Lazio v Bayer Leverkusen, Manchester United v Club Brugge, Sporting CP v CSKA Moscow, Rapid Vienna v Shakhtar Donetsk, Valencia v Monaco.
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Valencia v Monaco also looks fun.
Rapid Vienna v Shakhtar Donetsk is next.
Sporting Lisbon v CSKA Moscow looks a good tie too.
Manchester United will play Club Brugge in the play-off round!
Come on, experts, what do we expect from that?
Lazio v Bayer Leverkusen is drawn first, thus robbing of us of a Ravel Morrison derby.
One thing to note – Shakhtar and CSKA Moscow cannot play each other for political reasons.
Now for the League Route....
BATE Borisov v Partizan Belgrade gets the Champions Route tied up.
FC Basel v Maccabi Tel Aviv is the next tie.
Celtic will play Malmo in the play-off round!
They won’t mind that, tough game though it is.
Skenderbeu v Dinamo Zagreb is next.
Astana v APOEL is the first match to be drawn.
The Champions Route section of the draw will be made first. Disappointing lack of pageantry so far – looks like we’re going right ahead....
Celtic manager Ronny Deila speaketh: “We want to face the weakest team but it’s very hard to say which is the weakest. But the team we’re going to meet won’t be better than Qarabag.”
Qarabag weren’t bad (but did you watch the second leg? What about that pitch?! It ran like an ice rink!). Who to fear here? Astana are a very interesting proposition, from Kazakhstan, although their win over HJK Helsinki was a seat-of-the-pants affair. Doubt Celtic would fancy that journey again. Logistically, they’d probably quite like last year’s group stage participants Malmo.
Would you like to see the runners and riders in full? Ok. Remember – the ‘Champions Route’ and ‘League Route’ sections of the draw are separate, and seeds play non-seeds:
Champions Route
Seeds: Basel, Celtic, APOEL, BATE Borisov, Dinamo Zagreb
Non-seeds: Maccabi Tel Aviv, Partizan Belgrade, Malmo, Skenderbeu Korce, Astana
League Route
Seeds: Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Bayer Leverkusen, Valencia, Sporting CP
Non-seeds: Club Brugge, CSKA Moscow, Lazio, Monaco, Rapid Vienna
The draw season starts here!
So it begins. A gruelling, enervating regimen of attritional, overblown 90-minute watches that ultimately deliver little but broken dreams and a nagging sense of awkwardness. With any luck we’ll still have a little energy for some football after all that but for now, welcome to the draw for the play-off round of this season’s Champions League!
Who can everybody get? Some of my colleagues did the hard work yesterday and looked at the five clubs Manchester United could be drawn against. Spoiler alert: it’s Club Brugge, CSKA Moscow, Lazio, Monaco or Rapid Vienna.
For Celtic, the situation is different. That’s because they are in the Champions Route, which is sectioned off exclusively for league winners. Celtic, then, could face Maccabi Tel Aviv, Partizan Belgrade, Malmo, Skenderbeu Korce (they’re from Albania) or Astana (which you hopefully already know is in Kazakhstan).
Ping your emails in, anyway! Who would you like your boys to get?
Updated
Nick will be here shortly.
