High Noon On Friday For Europa League Draw

Saints will be hoping that the footballing gods will not be forsaking them as they enter the draw for the 3rd qualfiying round of the Europa league.

Saints will be one of 91 clubs in the 3rd qualifying round draw for the Europa league which takes place in Nyon at noon on Friday 17th July.

Saints are one of 25 clubs who enter at this stage and they will be joined by the winners of the 33 2nd round ties making a total of 58 ties in total. However UEFA are not making this draw simple

Saints will be one of 29 seeded teams and each of these will be placed into groups containing an equal number of seeded and unseeded teams, each group will then be drawn as follows.

A seeded team will be drawn and placed into a bowl, they will then be paired with an unseeded team who will be placed into the same bowl, that will then be shuffled and the first ball then drawn out will be the home side in the first leg.

But it doesnt end their for Saints knowing their opponents, only 8 of the unseeded teams will have completed their second leg ties by Friday, that means Saints could have to wait until Thursday 23rd July before knowing who they are actually playing from two options.

That means although usually in a two legged tie you would usually prefer to be at home in thesecond leg, from a point of view of the Saints fans who intend to travel, if this is the case and the second leg is at St Mary's then they will only have a week to organise travel etc to the away leg on the 30th August.

The unseeded teams for the third qualifying round are:

- Vitesse
- Astra Giurgiu/Inverness Caledonian Thistle
- Dinamo Minsk/Cherno More Varna
- Jablonec
- Slovan Bratislava/UCD
- Sturm Graz
- AIK/Shirak
- Mladá Boleslav/Strømsgodset
- Ślask Wroclaw/IFK Göteborg
- Žilina/Dacia Chisinau
- AEK Larnaca
- Debrecen/Skonto
- Brøndby/Beroe Stara Zagora
- Charleroi/Beitar Jerusalem
- Ironi Kiryat Shmona
- Shakhtyor Soligorsk/Wolfsberger AC
- Istanbul Basaksehir
- Vojvodina/Spartaks Jürmala
- Spartak Trnava/Linfield
- FH/Inter Baku
- Željezničar/Ferencváros
- Târgu Mures
- Shamrock Rovers/Odd
- Rheindorf Altach
- Rabotnički/Jelgava
- Vaduz/Nōmme Kalju
- Čukarički/Gabala
- Kukësi/Mladost Podgorica
- Kairat/Alashkert

So Saints could face any of the above teams in the 3rd round and there are some interesting possible journeys, Saints could be going to Beitar Jurusalem for instance, somewhere that Pompey would not have been able to visit in their European travels as they would not have been able to find 3 wise men to guide them there so would have had to withdraw.

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