Paços de Ferreira handed daunting Tottenham tie as Benfica and Santa Clara also find out their European opponents
Should Paços de Ferreira overcome Northern Ireland’s Larne as expected in the Europa Conference League, they will take on English Premier League outfit Tottenham Hotspur - the highest ranked team in the entire competition - for a place in the group stage.
Paços knew that they would face a difficult opponent in the Europa Conference League play-off, going into the draw as an unseeded team, but Spurs, managed by Nuno Espirito Santo, were no doubt the toughest on offer. Their other possible opponents included Basel, Viktoria Plzen and Qarabag.
Santa Clara, meanwhile, know that it is either Partizan of Serbia or Sochi from Russia who will be waiting for them in the next round should they manage to get past Olimpija Ljubljana. Santa Clara also went into the draw as an unseeded team, so were always going to get a tricky opponent in their bid to make the group stage.
They will, however, be pleased to have avoided Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma, officially the second best team in the tournament, who represented one of the 5 possible ties that they could have been given, alongside Celtic/Jablonec, Copenhagen/Lokomotiv Plovdiv, Hapoel Be’er Sheva/Slask Wroclaw and their actual draw opponents, Partizan/Sochi.
The Champions League play-off draw also took place, with Benfica set to play either PSV or Midtjylland for a lucrative place in the group stage - as long as they manage to overcome Rui Vitoria’s Spartak Moscow first.
Hugo Lloris. Photo author: Steffen Prößdorf. License link.
