Tough draw awaits Gżira United and Ħamrun Spartans
Malta’s remaining representatives in the UEFA Conference League, Hibernians, Gżira United and Ħamrun Spartans, will discover their potential opponents in the third qualifying round when the European governing body of football hosts the draw on Monday afternoon (start: 2pm).
Hibernians will be up against Levadia Tallinn, of Estonia, with the opening leg scheduled for Tuesday, while Gżira United and Ħamrun Spartans will kick off their respective second qualifying round ties on Thursday.
The Maroons will host Serbian giants Radnicki at the Centenary Stadium while the Spartans are away to Bosnian side Velez Mostar.
UEFA split the participating teams into different groups, with Hibernians, who are in the Champions Path, grouped with RFS, of Latvia, and could also pick the winner of the following ties – La Fiorita (San Marino) vs Ballkani (Kosovo), Vikingur Reykjavic (Iceland) vs The New Saints (Wales), Sutjeska (Montenegro) vs KI (Faroe Islands), and Lech Poznan (Poland) vs Dinamo Batumi (Georgia).
Gżira United and Ħamrun Spartans are in the Main Path and could face much tougher opposition than the Paolites.
In Group 4, Gżira United are up against the winner of the following ties – PFC Zire (Azerbainan) vs Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel); Botev Plovdiv (Bulgaria) vs APOEL (Cyprus), Saburtalo (Georga) vs FCSB (Romania), Gil Vicente, of Portugal and Austrian side Wolfsberger.
Ħamrun Spartans have the toughest draw of all the Maltese teams.
In fact, Nisevic’s men, should they overcome Velez Mostar, could be drawn against Dutch side Twente, or the winner of the following ties – Molde (Norway) vs Elsfsorg (Swee), Rapid Vienna (Austria) vs Lechia Gdnask (Poland), Hapoel Beer-Sheva (Israel) vs Dinamo Minsk (Belarus), Levski Sofia (Bulgaria) vs PAOK (Greece).
The third qualifying round of UEFA Conference League wil be played on August 4 and 11.
