A Rough Quide to New CL Qualifying Plus the latest Draw

By: Rob | July 17th, 2009

So we’re well and truely back. Except UEFA have decided to complicate Champions League qualifying in an attempt to improve ~~TV viewership of the qualifying rounds~~ make it more fair for the small teams who win their league but never qualify for this here Champions League. I think I just about get it, and shall explain it to you thus.

Basically now, every team in qualifying has been separated into two draws the “Champions Path” and the rest. Importantly, they can’t play one another and have been split up. On the Champions Side, the teams that are ranked lowest go in from the first qualifying round and have to fight through four rounds to reach the CL group stage. The slightly better ones are in the Second qualifying round, and the ones UEFA thinks a neutral might watch are in the third qualifying round. Those that win their third quali rounds are entered into a play off against each other and the winners get to the first round proper.

Still with me? Well its basically the same for the Non-Champions, except their draw is less long winded, and the bigger sides are chucked straight into the Playoff round. But, this time they can play each other there, and so we’ll see some mouthwatering matches in the Qaulifying play off round, with Arsenal, Stuttgart, Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid and Lyon all certainly in the draw, and a few others to join them.

Draw after the jump.

So here are the draws as they stand.

The Best of the Rest draw

1 AC Sparta Praha (CZE) v Panathinaikos FC (GRE)
2 FC Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR) v FC Timişoara (ROU)
3 Sporting Clube de Portugal (POR) v FC Twente (NED)
4 Celtic FC (SCO) v FC Dinamo Moskva (RUS)
5 RSC Anderlecht (BEL) v Sivasspor (TUR)

So whoever wins those games, gets to go in the draw with Fiorentina, Arsenal, Lyon etc. The big two matches there that I can see are 3 and 4, with Steve McLaren’s Twente taking on Sporting Lisbon, and Celtic with a tricky Russian tie.

Meanwhile the Champions Path, which still has a bit of a way to go, now looks like this

1 FC Salzburg (AUT) – Bohemian FC (IRL) v FC Pyunik (ARM) – NK Dinamo Zagreb (CRO)
2 NK Zrinjski (BIH) – ŠK Slovan Bratislava (SVK) v Olympiacos CFP (GRE)
3 FC Zürich (SUI) v FC WIT Georgia (GEO) – NK Maribor (SVN)
4 EB/Streymur (FRO) – APOEL FC (CYP) v Rhyl FC (WAL) – FK Partizan (SRB)
5 FC International Turku (FIN) – FC Sheriff (MDA) v SK Slavia Praha (CZE)
6 FH Hafnarfjördur (ISL) – FK Aktobe (KAZ) v Maccabi Haifa FC (ISR) – Glentoran FC (NIR)
7 FK Ekranas (LTU) – FK Bakı (AZE) v PFC Levski Sofia (BUL) – UE Sant Julià (AND)
8 FK Ventspils (LVA) – F91 Dudelange (LUX) v FK Makedonija Skopje (MKD) – FC BATE Borisov (BLR)
9 Wisla Kraków (POL) – Levadia Tallinn (EST) v Debreceni VSC (HUN) – Kalmar FF (SWE)
10 FC København (DEN) – FK Mogren (MNE) v KF Tirana (ALB) – Stabæk IF (NOR)

Excitingly, some of them teams is going to make the Champions League, which not only could cause some upsets, but is only going to improve the quality of their football.

Anyway, I actually quite like the new system, once you get your head round it. Certainly makes the group stage a little less obviously exciting, with a bunch of big names missing out, but at least it should mix it up so that each year looks a little different from the last.