Manchester United fans might not get the easy passage into the UEFA Champions League proper after the draw for the playoffs are made in Switzerland on Friday.
United are one of five seeds for the draw on the league qualifier route. The other seeds on that side of the draw are Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen, Shakhtar Donetsk, and Sporting Lisbon. While United fans will be happy to avoid those four strong clubs - it does nonetheless leave some potentially tricky opponents.
One of Lazio, Monaco, CSKA Moscow, Club Brugge or Rapid Vienna will be standing in United's way when the draw is made tomorrow.
On the other side of the draw, the Champions half of the playoff route, Celtic should conceivably face an easier draw than United. They are one of five seeds along with Basel, APOEL, BATE Borisov, and Dinamo Zagreb. That means Maccabi Tel Aviv, Partizan Belgrade, Malmo, Skenderbeu Kroce of Albania, and FC Astana of Kazakhstan are potential visitors to Celtic Park.
The two- legged ties will be played on the 18/19th and 25th/26th of August.
