Exciting Matchups In CL Third Qualifying Round

Although the Cham­pi­ons League Sec­ond Qual­i­fy­ing Round is still under­way, the draw for the Third Round took place today and it has pre­sented us with some very inter­est­ing matchups. The mar­quee matchup has to be FC Schalke 04 against Club Atletico de Madrid but the Arse­nal — FC Twente fix­ture will gar­ner much atten­tion from the UK-based media. The Arse­nal — FC Twente fix­ture will see for­mer Eng­land man­ager Steve McClaren coach­ing in Eng­land for the first time since he was sacked from his national team duties. It’ll be inter­est­ing to see what sort of recep­tion he receives in London.

Tak­ing a look at the other high­light matchup, Schalke reached the quarter-finals of the Cham­pi­ons League last sea­son but face a mas­sive chal­lenge in the re-tooled Atletico. Atletico will be seek­ing a return to the full com­pe­ti­tion for the first time since reach­ing the last eight in 1996–97.

Schalke gen­eral man­ager Andreas Müller was quoted by uefa.com as say­ing “This is the kind of fix­ture you would see in the last 16 or the quarter-finals.” I agree with that sen­ti­ment. These are two tal­ented clubs and it will be a major dis­ap­point­ment to see one of these clubs elim­i­nated so early on. How­ever, that’s the nature of the com­pe­ti­tion and is just another rea­son why, in my esti­ma­tion, the Cham­pi­ons League has become _the_ top com­pe­ti­tion in the soc­cer world.

The full list­ing of fix­tures is posted below. I am going to wait until the sec­ond round is over before mak­ing pre­dic­tions. Once the third round fix­tures are clear, I will post an update along with my pre­dic­tions on who will advance to the Group Stage.

2008/09 UEFA Cham­pi­ons League
Third Qual­i­fy­ing Round Fix­tures
First leg: 12/13 August
Sec­ond leg: 26/27 August

Anorthosis/Rapid Vienna v Olympiakos
Vito­ria Guimaraes v Gothenburg/Basel
Shakhtar Donetsk v Domzale/Dinamo Zagreb
Schalke 04 v Atletico Madrid
Aalborg/Modrica v Rangers/Kaunas
Barcelona v Beitar Jerusalem/Wisla Krakow
Lev­ski Sofia v Anderlecht/BATE
Stan­dard Liege v Liv­er­pool
Inter Baku/Partizan v Fenerbahce/MTK Hun­garia
Twente Enschede v Arse­nal
Spar­tak Moscow v Drogheda/Dinamo Kiev
Juven­tus v Tampere/Artmedia
Brann/Ventspils v Mar­seille
Fiorentina v Slavia Prague
Galatasaray v Steaua Bucharest
Panathinaikos/Dinamo Tbil­isi v Sher­iff Tiraspol/Sparta Prague

Tagged as: arsenal, atletico madrid, fc twente, schalke, steve mcclaren