Absolutely. I also want the Germans to play the Turks, and the Serbs to play the Croats, so it is what it is.
Damn I didn't realize the Scottish Champs have to win 2 games to get into Group Stage now. I knew the SPL got a bump down, but didn't realize it was that
well they aren't technically playing any of those teams in that bracket, they are paired with the advancing teams from the previous rounds.
Dortmund is probably going to end up in Pot 4 for the group stage draw, they're currently ranked #86 in the club coefficient.
could have sworn, i thought. smh. whoops. i thought so, in the same way other teams are dropped in with the advancing teams as the tourney goes on
I believe the Non-Champion playoff round is determined by the club coefficient ranking at the time. The top 5 teams are "seeded" and are drawn randomly with one of the 5 "unseeded" teams. Looking at one of our CL threads from last season, this was how it looked for the non-champs: Seeded Teams Ajax Sevilla Tottenheim Werder Bremen Zenit Unseeded Teams Auxerre Braga Dynamo Kiev Sampdoria Young Boys
Rangers lost at Ibrox to the Swedish champs Rangers 0-1 Malmo Dynamo Kiev 0-2 Rubin Kazan Genk 2-1 Partizan Belgrade Twente 2-0 Vaslui Zestafoni 1-1 Sturm Ekranas 0-0 BATE APOEL 0-0 Bratislava Litex 1-2 Wisla Krakow
Best part is that Rangers will not have any fans at the game in Sweden as they have a one match travel ban for what happened against the fighting wicket last year.
yeah, we were in the group stage before. we also lost our 2nd spot (was 3rd qualifying round iirc...hurts Celtic dearly, but hopefully for only one year....). and they drew with Hearts @ Ibrox while we took care of business @ Hibs. glorious beginning to the year.
Doesn't matter because they can advance all they want to the group stages of the CL but they will still get pair with a super club and not make it any further.
Champions Route BATE (Belarus) and Copenhagen advanced yesterday. Rangers is up 1-0 at the half. They are down 10 after Steven Whittaker throwing the ball at a Malmo player. League Route Odense (Denmark) won 4-3 yesterday over Panathinaikos and advanced 5-4 on aggregate Rubin Kazan beat Dynamo Kiev 2-1 today and advanced 4-0 on aggregate
They are split until the group stage. The League route gets to avoid the big clubs in the playoff and have a chance to get into the group stage. It is usually the smaller countries league champions.
This is the first round of the split. The prior rounds were all league champions. The League route has more recognizable squads in it. Rangers are down 9 men now.