Big names await third qualifying round draw

Olympique Lyonnais, FC Zenit St Petersburg and PSV Eindhoven are among the clubs who will learn their fate when the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round draw is made on Friday.

There will be a total of 30 teams waiting to discover their opponents in Nyon, with the draw streamed live on UEFA.com from 12.00CET. Some 13 sides enter the competition at this stage, where they will join the winners of the 17 second qualifying round ties – which conclude next week. The third qualifying round will take place on 30/31 July and 6/7 August.

The clubs progressing from the second qualifying round will join FC Basel 1893, APOEL FC and FK Austria Wien in the champions route section of the draw. The ten teams in the league route have already been decided. The seeding pots will be announced on Friday morning.

For the league route, the ten sides will be seeded or not according to their coefficient. In the case of the clubs advancing from each second qualifying round tie to the champions route, the coefficient of the higher-ranked team of the competing duo will be used for the draw.

The champions route teams are further split into two groups of ten, each containing an equal number of seeded and unseeded contenders. Of the 20 sides that will feature in the champions route at this juncture, five will eventually participate in the group stage following the play-offs.

Five ties will be formed in the league route, with the five highest-ranked clubs seeded. The winners will join Arsenal FC, AC Milan, FC Schalke 04, Real Sociedad de Fútbol and FC Paços de Ferreira in the play-offs to decide the five teams proceeding from that route into the group stage (for which 22 clubs are already confirmed).

LEAGUE ROUTE
Seeded
Olympique Lyonnais (FRA), FC Zenit St. Petersburg (RUS), PSV Eindhoven (NED), FC Metalist Kharkiv (UKR), Fenerbahçe SK (TUR)

Unseeded
PAOK FC (GRE), FC Salzburg (AUT), FC Nordsjælland (DEN), Grasshopper Club (SUI), SV Zulte Waregem (BEL)

CHAMPIONS ROUTE
Group 1: Seeded
FC Basel 1893 (SUI), FC Steaua Bucureşti (ROU)/FK Vardar (MKD), APOEL FC (CYP), FC Shirak (ARM)/FK Partizan (SRB), The New Saints FC (WAL)/Legia Warszawa (POL)

Unseeded
Birkirkara FC (MLT)/NK Maribor (SVN), ŠK Slovan Bratislava (SVK)/PFC Ludogorets Razgrad (BUL), Győri ETO FC (HUN)/Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC (ISR), Sligo Rovers FC (IRL)/Molde FK (NOR), FC Dinamo Tbilisi (GEO)/ EB/Streymur (FRO)

Group 2: Seeded
FC BATE Borisov (BLR)/FC Shakhter Karagandy (KAZ), Celtic FC (SCO)/ Cliftonville FC (NIR), FC Viktoria Plzeň (CZE)/FK Željezničar (BIH), CS Fola Esch (LUX)/GNK Dinamo Zagreb (CRO), FK Austria Wien (AUT)

Unseeded
FC Sheriff (MDA)/FK Sutjeska (MNE), IF Elfsborg (SWE)/FC Daugava Daugavpils (LVA), HJK Helsinki (FIN)/JK Nõmme Kalju (EST), FK Ekranas (LTU)/FH Hafnarfjördur(ISL), Neftçi PFK (AZE)/KS Skënderbeu (ALB)