If Maccabi Tel Aviv advance to the third round of the Champions League qualifiers, their opponents will be the Swiss champions FC Basel
In the draw for the third qualifying round of the Champions League, held this afternoon at the Swiss town of Nyon, the winner on aggregate between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Gyori FC was drawn against the Swiss champions FC Basel. Once again the draw was divided into two groups, the Champions route and the League route. The winners of the second round have yet to be determined but 17 clubs will advance from that stage and be joined by three more clubs who have earned automatic admission to start their campaign in round 3. All the clubs participating in the third round were ranked in accordance with their coefficients accumulated in European competition – seeds and non-seeds.
After the clubs were divided this morning and potential rivals for each club had been narrowed down, it fell to non-seeds Maccabi Tel Aviv or Gyori FC to face one of the following seeded rivals in the third qualifying round: Swiss champions FC Basel, Cypriot champions APOEL Nicosia, Serbian champions FK Partizan Belgrade, Polish champions Legia Warsaw or the winner between Romanian champions FC Steaua Bucharest and FYR Macedonian champions FK Vardar. In the event, Maccabi's name came first out of the bowl and their opponents are the highest ranked of all the clubs participating in the third round draw, FC Basel.
Basel have been crowned 16 times champions of Switserland and were one of the three teams to start their Champions League campaign in the third round. But it is not just their UEFA ranking that gives an indication of their prowess but also their recent achievements. Only last season they reached the semi-finals of the Europa League, losing to the eventual winners of the competition, Chelsea. In the 2011/12 season their results too were impressive, making it to the last sixteen of the Champions League after a group stage that saw them finish ahead of English giants Manchester United, sending them out of the competition. Basel also have 11 Swiss Cup triumphs to their credit and their most recent championship was their fourth in succession and eighth since 2002.
Despite the retirement of one of their star players of all time, striker Alexander Frei, Basel are still blessed with a quality squad with a number of noteworthy names. Striker and team captain Marco Streller is the central figure on the team, having played six seasons with the club and scoring 77 goals, the last of which in a 3-1 victory over FC Aarau in the first matchweek of the Swiss Super League that opened last Saturday. The rising young Argentinian star, striker Raul Bobadilla, and Egyptian midfielder Mohamed Salah also scored against Aarau and will no doubt continue to draw attention.
Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Paulo Sousa had this to say to the official club website in a reaction to the third round Champions League qualifying draw: "Despite the news that we could be facing FC Basel in the next round we are fully concentrated on the return leg on Tuesday against Gyori".
The first leg of round 3 will be held about a week after the second encounter with Gyori, on the 30th or 31st of July, with the return leg coming a week later, the 6th or 7th of August. Naturally Maccabi will first have to maintain their promising advantage acquired in the first match against Gyori and come out on top in the return leg. That match, to be played at Maccabi's Bloomfield Stadium on Tuesday at 9.30pm and broadcast on Israeli sports channel Sport 1, will be refereed by a Swedish team lead by head official Martin Hanson.
Photograph courtesy of the official FC Basel website
