There are the Preliminary Pots. If all seeded sides win the Qualifiers this will be the pots.

Pot 1

Manchester United (England)
FC Barcelona (Spain)
Chelsea (England)
Bayern Munich (Germany)
Arsenal (England)
Real Madrid (Spain)
FC Porto (Portugal)
Inter (Italy)

Pot 2

AC Milan (Italy)
Shakhtar Donestk (Ukraine)
Valencia (Spain)
Benfica (Portugal)
Villarreal (Spain)
CSKA Moscow (Russia)
Olympique Marseille (France)
Olympique Lyon (France)

Pot 3

Zenit St Petersburg (Russia)
Rangers (Scotland)
Ajax (Holland)
Bayer Leverkusen (Germany)
FC Copenhagen (Denmark)
Olympiakos (Greece)
Fenerbahce (Turkey)
Manchester City (England)

Pot 4

Lille OSC (France)
BATE Borisov (Belarus)
Borussia Dortmund (Germany)
Maccabi Haifa (Israel)
Napoli (Italy)
Sturm Graz (Austria)
FC Basel (Switzerland)
Otelul Galati (Romania)

So we can not meet Lille and Dortmund.

Best Chance of Qualification:

Arsenal
Benfica
Rangers
Otelul Galati

If not that group then:

Real Madrid
CSKA Moscow
Rangers
FC Basel

Comment deleted by Article Creator

Thought lille would have been in 2nd pot, my mistake. Id take

Madrid
Lyon
Dortmund

Just as a group of teams to visit ibrox, not to qualify lol for that id take

Porto
CSKA
Sturm Graz

Meant the madrid group would be the one we wouldnt qualify from, not the porto one lol

Just ou ma bed, still sleepin lol

Real Madrid
Lyon
Borussia Dortmund

Would be a very tough group but would be a money spinner. I would rather have a chance to Qualify or at least take 3rd.

Pot 4 this year could be pretty deadly with the French and German Champions both 4th seeded and Napoli, avoid those 3 i hope.

But 1st we must get there.

True, if we get the right players in, n the ones we've been linked with so far give me hope, n they gel quickly, id be confident of makin the group stage whoever we get

Comment deleted by Article Creator

Imagine this

Barcelona
AC Milan
Rangers
Borussia Dortmund



We could actually end up with 0 points in that group and Barca would give us a hammering if they played anywhere near there best.

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I hope we get

Real Madrid
Benfica
Rangers
Maccabi Haifa

Thats if we get there

Comment deleted by Article Creator

0 points or papped out the europa league qualifers? Could be worse

Comment deleted by Article Creator

Comment deleted by Article Creator

Serious question.

Do you think McCoist will have a more expansive approach to European football, or do you reckon he will be as defensive as Smith?

Ally will be more attack minded - the one big gripe I had with Smith was OK sometimes the starting line up maybe wrong but fek would he change it ... - only when it was too late

I hope Ally can make decisions quicker when required ...

ps this talk of CL - when is the qualifying rounds and when do we know who we can get ??

comment by Cossy - We Are All Neil Lennon (U5307) posted 5 minutes ago

Serious question.

Do you think McCoist will have a more expansive approach to European football, or do you reckon he will be as defensive as Smith?

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Smiths tactics at certain times in Europe done my head in.

Man Utd at home last season was a prime example.
Win and we had a chance of going through draw or defeat Europa league was in the bag.
0-0 with 30mins to go would have been the perfect time to stick 2 up front but still no change.
This was a game where we had nothing to lose.

4-4-2 for me please!

I think Ally will at least field a 442 formation when we are at home and have a chance of taking points. But, u have to look at it n say if we get a barca/madrid etc, is there any other way to play against these teams than 451? We should have a stronger bench/team this year so changes are there to be made if it aint happening for us. This season is the first iv looked forward to in a long time

Titanic
the reason iv deleted ur comments are they contribute no significant input to the discussion. At least cossy came up with something constructive. U manage that n il keep u in the loop

That's the preliminary seeds for Round 3, in which Rangers enter.

Champions Path
Seeded (Left) Unseeded (Right)

Rangers (Scotland) - Litex Lovech (Bulgaria)*
-FC Copenhagen (Denmark) - RC Genk (Belgium)
-BATE Borisov (Belarus)* - Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia)*
-Maccabi Haifa (Israel)* - Viktoria Plzen (Czech Rep)*
-Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)* - NK Maribor (Slovenia)*
-Rosenborg (Norway)* - HJK Helsinki (Finland)*
-APOEL Nicosia (Cyprus)* - Ekranas (Lithuania)*
-Wisla Krakow (Poland)* - FC Zetsafoni (Georgia)*
-Partizan Belgrade (Serbia)* - Malmo FF (Sweden)*
-Sturm Graz (Austria)* -Shamrock Rovers (Ireland)*

We are the top seeded side in the whole Champions Path Qualification, as no other teams enter after the 3rd round.

So the Play-Off Round Preliminary seeding is.

Seeded

Rangers
FC Copenhagen
BATE Borisov
Maccabi Haifa
Sturm Graz

Unseeded

Rosenborg
Dinamo Zagreb
APOEL Nicosia
Wisla Krakow
Partizan Belgrade


In the 3rd Round i would like :

Shamrock Rovers

Would like to avoid RC Genk.

In the Play-Off Round

I want APOEL Nicosia and want to avoid Partizan Belgrade.

cheers - so do we not play any of say the teams that finished 3rd or 4th from the German, English or Italian leagues then ??

I think we might meet Barca in the final. We'll win it with a Jelly overhead special which will overshadow everything that Messi did in the game. Messi would look very poor anyway, if he came up against Sir David of Weir or Sasa.

Scooby

We avoid all the 'big guns' although teams like partisan, dinamo and rosenborg could be troublesome if we havent started the season bang on form

in that case - get spending Ally

still a joke we do need to qualify in the first place and its 2 rounds to go through !!!