Manchester United and Manchester City are on the verge of discovering who will be competing in this year’s Champions League group phase....CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Both of Manchester’s clubs qualified for the Champions League through their final league positions last season. City know they will be in Pot One, while United are expected to be in Pot Two.
City will be joined in Pot One by; Sevilla, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Napoli, PSG, Benfica and Feyenoord. The Blues will not face any of these teams in the group stages, United will face one of them but not Pep Guardiola’s side as two teams from the same country cannot face each other until the quarter-finals.
Other teams who have already qualified include:
Arsenal and Newcastle United (England)
Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Real Sociedad (Spain)
Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Union Berlin (Germany)
Inter Milan, Lazio and AC Milan (Italy)
Lens (France)
Porto (Portugal)
RB Salzburg (Austria)
Celtic (Scotland)
Red Star Belgrade (Serbia)
Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)
Real Madrid find themselves outside of Pot One after Barcelona won LaLiga last year. Celtic would also be a notable tie considering the relatively short trip both Manchester clubs would have to undertake to get there.
Arguably, the more exciting prospects come from teams who are still attempting to qualify for the group stages. This week, the third qualifying round of the Champions League took place to decide who would progress to the final play-off round.
Those who were successful included FC Copenhagen. The Danish side won 4-2 on penalties against Sparta Prague after thrilling 3-3 draw in the second leg.
As well as being United’s new signing Rasmus Hojlund’s old club, FC Copenhagen boasts two of the striker’s siblings in their squad. Emil and Oscar Hojlund, 18, are twins and feature in the youth ranks.
Both are highly regarded with Emil appearing on the bench for the Danish side this season while Oscar featured in the second qualifying round victory over Icelandic side Breidablik Kopavogur. FC Copenhagen will face Polish side Rakow Czestochowa in the play-offs.
Meanwhile, another all British tie could be on the cards should Rangers beat PSV Eindhoven in the play-offs. The Glaswegian giants have former United loanee goalkeeper Jack Butland in their team.
The other Champions League play-off ties:
Maccabi Haifa vs Young Boys
Royal Antwerp vs Dinamo Zagreb or AEK Athens
Molde vs Galatasaray
Braga vs Panathinaikos
Play-off fixtures will take place on either Tuesday, August 22 or Wednesday, August 23 with the return leg taking place a week later…..READFULL
