Manchester City will face 1985-86 European Cup winners Steaua Bucharest in the Champions League play-off round. The play-offs will be played over two legs, first of which will be held on August 16 and 17. The return legs are scheduled one week later on August 23 and 24. The draw for the group stages of the Champions League takes place on August 25.
Subsequently, the Europa League play-off fixtures were also announced and West Ham have been drawn against a side they lost to last season.
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Under Manuel Pellegrini, Manchester City finished fourth last season and therefore, they still need to qualify for the Champions League group stages. Pep Guardiola’s side have been drawn to play Romanian Liga 1 runners-up Steaua Bucharest on a trip away to Romania, before the return leg at the Etihad in Manchester. Guardiola would be hoping to take City to another level by improving on his predecessor’s best result of Champions League semifinals last season.
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Manchester City sporting director Txiki Begiristain said, “It’s going to be a difficult tie because Steaua are on the up again in Europe and have a lot of talent.”
After automatic qualifications to the group stages, there are still 10 vacant spots up in the Champions League. These spots will be claimed by the winners of each of the 10 ties, from 20 teams involved in the draw. These teams are split into two groups, each of which is seeded by the UEFA.
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The first path of entering the draw is the ‘Champions route’ for the teams who win the domestic leagues but cannot earn a group stage entry because the UEFA coefficient of their country is too low. The other route is the ‘League route’ where teams from major leagues enter the draw based on their standing, since a position is allocated to teams from such leagues for a direct entry based on the aforementioned UEFA country coefficient rule.
Any team that fails at the play-offs is demoted, albeit guaranteed a Europa League group berth. In the Europa League, West Ham are set to face Astra Giurgiu in the play-off round. The Romanian champions knocked out West Ham in last season’s Europa League and Slaven Bilic’s men must be eagerly waiting to seek revenge this time.
If West Ham succeed over the two legs, they will join Manchester United and Southampton in the group stages. The first leg will take place on 18 August before West Ham host Astra at the Olympic Stadium a week later.
