European football correspondent
Manchester United are the biggest of the 20 clubs in Friday’s draw for the third round of Uefa Champions League qualifiers.
Louis van Gaal’s side, who earned their place in the draw after finishing fourth in England’s Premier League, can be paired with either Lazio, CSKA Moscow, Club Brugge, Rapid Vienna or Monaco.
They will meet in a two-legged play-off this month before the draw for the Champions League proper in Monaco on August 28.
All United’s potential opponents won in the second qualifying round, the second legs of which were played this week and saw Ajax and Fenerbahce eliminated from the competition.
United, Champions League stalwarts and usually pot one regulars until last season when they failed to qualify for European competition after a seventh place finish in 2014, are seeded in Uefa’s complicated co-efficient system.
Should they make it through the qualifier, they will be seeded in pot two in the group stages meaning they could draw sides such as Barcelona or Paris Saint-Germain.
United fans, who are eager to travel after a first season without European football since English clubs were re-introduced to European competition in 1990, would favour a trip to Belgium, with relative ease of access to Manchester and an opponent not considered the most difficult.
A trip to Moscow, to play a CSKA side who reached the group stages where they played United’s neighbours City last season, would be the least favourite as expensive Russian visas, complicated by the political situation, would need to be arranged at short notice.
United have played in the Russian capital several times in recent seasons and won the European Cup there in 2008, but CSKA are already three games into the Russian season.
Rapid Vienna would also be a popular choice. Five thousand United fans travelled to the freezing Austrian capital when the sides met in a Champions League game in December 1996 and Peter Schmeichel’s greatest save helped his side reach the knockout stages and a game against Porto.
Monaco, who knocked United out of the 1998 competition, would be considered another problematic opponent, though there are worse places to visit than the principality in high summer. Lazio, who defeated United in Monaco to win the 1999 European Super Cup, would be another problematic opponent. United also met Lazio away in the defunct Anglo-Italian Cup in the 1972/73 season, with the game finishing 0-0 in Rome in front of 52,834.
The other teams in the draw are Valencia (Spain), Bayer Leverkusen (Germany), Sporting CP (Portugal), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), Apoel (Cyprus), Celtic (Scotland), Partizan (Serbia), Basel (Switzerland), Bate Borisov (Belarus), Malmo (Sweden), Astana (Kazakhstan), Skenderbeu (Albania), Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia) and Maccabi Tel-Aviv (Israel).
Three time winners United and Celtic are the only sides in the play-offs who have lifted the European Cup, though Valencia were finalists in 2000 and 2001. Skenderbeu and Astana would be the first teams from their countries to reach the group stage.
Not all the teams can play each other but if Valencia win their play-off then Spain will be the first country to have five teams in the Champions League after Sevilla won the Europa League. Barcelona, the reigning European champions, are in the group stages with Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid.
It is unlikely a Russian and Ukrainian side would be allowed to meet given the current political situation between the two countries.
Donetsk’s Donbass Arena has been bombed and Shakhtar are now based in the capital Kiev, while playing their games in the western city of Lviv.
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