Date Published: Wednesday, 22nd July, 2020 - 3:00pm by Nik Mesney
With our first ever UEFA Champions' League fixture little under a month away, we take a look at a number of the details regarding the matches and potential opposition.
The Draw
The draw for the First Qualifying Round of fixtures will take place on Sunday 9th August with the Second Round Draw taking place on Monday 10th August. At this stage, we believe that due to Covid restrictions the draw will be hosted digitally as opposed to club representatives making the trip to Geneva to find out our opponents.
The Tie
You may already know, but this season's Champion's League Qualifying Round fixtures have been modified considerably to take into account the reduced timeframe available to play the games. As a result, there will only be a single knockout tie as opposed to two-legged affairs that we are used to. The home and away factor in the draw will be purely decided by who is drawn out of the pot first.
Home fixture
Should we be drawn at home in either the UEFA Champion's League or UEFA Europa League, we will be playing our home games at Cardiff City Stadium. The stadium is already prepared for Covid-safe regulations with Cardiff City having recently resumed their chase for promotion into the English Premier League. The game will be played behind closed doors and we will be aiming to broadcast the game on television or through an internet stream.
Potential Opposition
The Nomads will enter the competition at the First Qualifying Round stage alongside some huge European names including Red Star Belgrade, Legia Warsaw and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
European football expert, Bert Kassies has indicated however that there is a strong likelihood that we would be entered into a "Northern Europe" group of seeded vs unseeded teams, which would mean that we could very likely encounter the following teams;
• Celtic (Scotland)
• Djurgardens IF (Sweden)
• Molde FK (Norway)
• Dundalk (Republic of Ireland)
• Suduva Marijampole (Lithuania)
Future Dates
Should we progress to the Second Qualifying Round of the Champions' League, that fixture would take place on Tuesday 25th August. Should we find ourselves eliminated from the UEFA Champions' League, we will then enter the UEFA Europa League Second Qualifying Round through the Champions Route. The draw for this will take place on Monday 31st August with the fixture itself taking place on Thursday 17th September.
