At one o'clock today the draw will be held in Switzerland for the third round of the qualifying stage of the Champions League. Among the seeds are the Swiss giants FC Basel and the Romanians FC Steaua Bucharest
The home leg of the round 2 Champions League qualifiers have yet to be played, but today Maccabi Tel Aviv will already know what the next hurdle will be in reaching the group stages if the club advance at the expense of Gyori FC on Tuesday. The draw for round 3 will be held at 1pm at the Swiss town of Nyon, with the 17 clubs that advance from round 2 participating in the draw. To those clubs will be added three more clubs who have earned automatic admission to start their campaign in round 3. This total of 20 clubs will be ranked in accordance with their coefficients accumulated in European competition – seeds and non-seeds. Maccabi's coefficient of 8.075 places them among the non-seeded teams so that if they prevail on Tuesday round 3 will see them facing a superior side, on paper at least. The first leg will be held a week after the second Gyori encounter, with the return leg coming a week later. One thing is certain: Head coach Paulo Sousa and his squad still have a long way to go. Here are a selection of the seeds participating in the 3rd round draw:
FC Steaua Bucharest
The Romanian leaders return to The Champions League after for years of Europa League competition and in their second round first leg qualifier they defeated FYR Macedonian side FK Vardar 3-0. Last season Steaua made it to the last 16 of the Europa League, where they were defeated on aggregate by eventual winners Chelsea.
FK Partizan Belgrade
In the first leg of round two, the Bulgarian champions were spared blushes by an injury time equaliser against the Armenian champions Shirak F.C., but for the Armenians getting that result was no easy matter. Last season Partizan reached the group stages of the Europa League but finished with a single point.
Legia Warsaw
The Polish champions have the lowest coefficient of all the seeded teams in the draw, but that does not tell the whole story of a club that just two years ago defeated Hapoel Tel Aviv in the group stages of the Europa League. Legia won their second round first leg 3-1 away at the Welsh champions, making their appearance in round 3 all the more likely.
FC Basel, APOEL F.C. Nicosia
Two new clubs will enter the draw for round three, Swiss champions FC Basel and Cypriot champions APOEL Nicosia. The Swiss side are ranked highest of all the seeds in the qualifying rounds and two years ago APOEL Nicosia made it to the quarter finals of the competition where their progress was halted by Real Madrid.
Live reports from the third round draw will be posted on the official Maccabi Tel Aviv Facebook page.
