Olympiacos: Change in Europa League playoff draw brings Maccabi back as a possible opponent

On Monday (1 August), UEFA changed the draw for the Europa League playoffs on Tuesday (2 August), in which Olympiacos will also take part. There is no restriction to compete against teams from the same country. There is only a restriction for Azerbaijan and Armenia due to the tense political atmosphere.

This changed Olympiakos’ potential Europa League opponent ahead of Tuesday’s draw from what was known in previous days.

This means that the “Red-Whites” not only have a team as candidate opponents that can only come from the first priority group, but also from the second priority group, i.e. the teams that are excluded from the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions League.

In fact, UEFA has downgraded Omonia from the first priority group compared to previous days and dropped it into the fourth priority group. The potential Olympiakos opponent can either come from the first priority group, i.e. one of the following:

• Gent (Belgium)
• Austria (Austria)
• hearts (Scotland)
• Sivasspor (Turkey)
• Dnipro (Ukraine)
• Silkeborg (Denmark)

These can arise from the second priority group, the teams eliminated in the 3rd round of Champions League qualification and being the losers of the following couples.

Of course, the question here is whether Olympiacos or any other team from the pre-stage team can get in the way. For example, if the “red and white” can be redrawn with Maccabi Haifa based on the current data.

This of course seems a bit strange and maybe at the last moment – just before the draw – UEFA will impose some restrictions on the pairings. Anyway, based on today’s data, Olympiacos may fall with the pairs losers:

• Maccabi Haifa (Israel) or Apollo Limassol (Cyprus)
• Karabakh (Azerbaijan) or Ferentsvaros (Hungary)
• Ludogorets (Bulgaria) or Dynamo Zagreb (Croatian)
• sheriff (Moldova) or Pilsen (Czech Republic)
• Bodo shine (Norway) or Salgiris Vilnius (Lithuania)
• Red Star (Serbia) or Punic (Armenia)

Nothing changes in the conference league opponent

Olympiacos will of course take part in the Europa Conference League draw, with the draw taking place on Tuesday (2/8) at 15:00 CET. So if he can’t get past Slovan Bratislava, he’ll know his opponent from now on.

The contenders for the Conference League Playoffs have been known since last week and will come from the following pairings. Always in case Olympiacos is eliminated from the Europa League, of course.

• viking (Iceland) – Leh (Poland)
• Riga (Latvia) – hibernian (Malta)
• Balkans (Kosovo) – Claxwick (Faroe Islands)
• Zrinsky (Bosnia) – tom ball (Kazakhstan)
• Shakhtar (Belarus) – Cluj-Napoca (Romania)

The reason UEFA made the change

The reason why UEFA changed the Europa League play-off draw has to do with Article 13(5) which states that the teams qualify for the play-off and are drawn according to the principles of the Competitions Committee, and bAccording to the announcement, at least eight champions must play against each other in the playoffs for at least four to qualify.