WITH THE THIRD qualifying round having reached its conclusion last night, Liverpool are a step closer to knowing who they’ll face when the draw for the Champions League play-off round is made tomorrow at 11am.
Jurgen Klopp’s Reds secured only the club’s second top-four finish in the past eight Premier League seasons last term, and are seeded for the draw on account of their coefficient.
As such, they will be required to defeat one of the five unseeded teams across two legs in order to reach the group stage.
Who can Liverpool get in the Champions League draw?
Liverpool will face one of the following five sides: Hoffenheim, Nice, Istanbul Basaksehir, Young Boys and Steaua Bucharest. Here’s a look at how each have fared since the end of last season.
Hoffenheim (Germany)
Under now 30-year-old manager Julian Nagelsmann, Roberto Firmino’s former club finished comfortably fourth in the Bundesliga last campaign, 13 points clear of Cologne.
They have played just three pre-season games to date, beating Standar Liege 4-2 at home before falling 3-2 to visitors Genoa. Last Saturday, they visited Derby and emerged from Pride Park with a 2-1 victory. They host Bologna this Saturday in their final warm-up ahead of the new campaign.
New signings include former Arsenal winger Serge Gnabry on loan from Bayern, and defensive Harvard Nordtveit for whom they paid West Ham a summer-highest €6.5m.
Star defender Niklas Süle has however departed. The 21-year-old German international joined Bayern for upwards of €18.5m having signed a deal in January of this year.
Nice (France)
On Wednesday night Nice doomed Europa League finalists Ajax to another year in Europe’s second tier, progressing on away goals after a 2-2 draw at the Johan Cruijff Arena.
They finished 11 clear of Lyon in Ligue 1 last season to qualify for the Champions League’s preliminaries, and the average age of their 29-man first team squad is just 23.
They’ve made few signings of note this summer, and have lost only Younès Belhanda from last season’s squad.
Were they to draw Liverpool, it would mean a return to Anfield for one Mario Balotelli, who found the net 17 times in 28 appearances for the Riviera club last term. Incidentally, a hamstring injury ruled ‘Super Mario’ out of last night’s triumph in Amsterdam, and so Balotelli watched the game in a bar amongst fans.
Istanbul Basaksehir (Turkey)
Founded as recently as 1990, the capital club now employs Emmanuel Adebayor. Indeed, the 33-year-old forward found the net as his side cruised into the play-off round in emphatic fashion at the Fatih Terim Stadium, seeing Club Brugge off 2-0 following a 3-3 draw in Belgium.
Other notable players include Dutch flier Eljero Elia, now 30, and 33-year-old former Napoli and Leicester midfielder Gökhan Inler.
Undefeated all summer, Basaksehir actually kick off their league season on Friday week when they host Bursaspor. Last season’s beaten Turkish Cup finalists have lost just four of their last 50 games in all competitions in normal time.
Young Boys (Switzerland)
Last season’s Swiss Super League runners-up shocked Dynamo Kiev at Stade de Suisse last night, an improbable 2-0 home win dragging them through on away goals.
A ropey pre-season featured a 5-1 defeat at Red Bull Salzburg followed by a 4-1 loss at Akhmat Grozny, but Young Boys steadied the ship with a 2-2 home draw versus Stoke and a 5-1 win over Benfica. They then opened their new league season with an impressive 2-0 victory over last season’s runaway champions Basel, and after escaping to victory against Dynamo, they enter tomorrow’s draw in red-hot form despite losing star Japanese striker Yuya Kubo to Gent for €3.3m.
They last played Liverpool in the Europa League group stage back in 2012/13, earning a 2-2 draw at Anfield but falling 5-3 at home to the Jonjo Shelvey-inspired Merseysiders.
Steaua Bucharest (Romania)
The Romanian champions annihilated Viktoria Plzeň in the Czech Republic to reach the play-off stage after a 2-2 home draw left them teetering on the brink.
Steaua have opened their new league season with two wins and a draw, but have lost first-teamers Fernando Boldrin and Jugurtha Hamroun to Turkey and Qatar respectively.
They have however added to their books veteran Portuguese playmaker Filipe Teixeira, who we last saw operating for West Brom (and briefly Barnsley) between 2007 and 2010, and has since played for seven clubs in Eastern Europe and the UAE.
The 36-year-old has netted twice in his first five games for his new club.
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