Scottish teams in Europe explainer

The Scotsman

27/05/2025

Mark Atkinson talks through Scottish teams in Europe.

Transcript

00:00Hello, my name is Mark Atkinson, Sports Edge of The Scotsman, and I'm here today to talk

00:06you through what awaits our five European representatives in Europe for competitions

00:11in the 2025-2026 campaign. We now know where everybody will play after Aberdeen's Scottish

00:18Cup victory last weekend. So as I said, we have five teams in Europe. They are Celtic,

00:24Rangers, Aberdeen, Hibs and Dundee United. Let's start with Celtic. They won the Premiership

00:31by 15 points and they are in the Champions League, although unlike the season just passed,

00:37they will not enter the main phase directly. Brendan Rodgers' men will have to navigate

00:43a play-off round, two-legged tie. The good news is that they're seeded and they will face

00:49a fellow champion from another nation somewhere such like Switzerland, Poland, Austria. That list

00:57will become far clearer as the qualification rounds go through. If Celtic were to win that play-off tie,

01:04they will go into the Champions League proper. If they were to lose, they would drop into the Europa

01:09League. Rangers are also in the Champions League, although their path is a little more complicated.

01:15They enter the tournament at the second qualifying round. That's a round earlier than the season just

01:22passed. They will be seeded for that particular tie and they know already that they will face either

01:28Servette from Switzerland, Bran from Norway or Panathinaikos from Greece. Now, if Rangers were to lose

01:38that tie, they would drop into the Europa League third qualifying round. If they were to win,

01:44they go into the third qualifying round of the Champions League where again they would be seeded,

01:48their opponents not yet known. And if they were to win that tie, they would go into the play-off

01:54of the Champions League. If they were to lose, they were going to the play-off of the Europa League. So

01:59Rangers do get a parachute pretty much every step of the way as they go through Europe.

02:06In the play-off, they would be unseeded in the Champions League and could face

02:10teams such as Benfica. So it's an arduous route for whoever takes over the Rangers hot seat,

02:16which will be discovered in the coming days. Aberdeen, well, their Scottish Cup victory

02:24really helped them in their European adventure next season. They had finished fifth in the

02:28Premiership, which meant they were looking at Conference League football. But as a result of

02:32winning the Scottish Cup against Celtic, they advanced to the Europa League play-off round. Now,

02:39that means that they are guaranteed European football until at least Christmas, because if

02:43they were to lose that play-off round, they would drop directly into the Conference League.

02:47They also don't enter European football until the last two weeks of August. Only Celtic have that

02:54benefit, you would say, as well from the Scottish teams involved. Aberdeen will be unseeded for the

02:59Europa League play-off draw and are guaranteed to play a pretty big name in European football. Again,

03:05that will become clearer as the qualification rounds go on. If they were to drop into the

03:10Conference League, they would likely be a pot four team. And that seems the most likely destination

03:17for them, although they'll have, they'll give themselves a very good chance, one I suspect,

03:20of trying to get into the Europa League as you need to lean plans for next season. It was an unfortunate

03:26weekend for Hibbs, given that they thought they had the benefits that Aberdeen have got after they

03:31finish third in the Premiership, but the Cup victory means that Aberdeen usurped them. And while Hibbs

03:37are still in the Europa League, they enter at the second qualifying round and they'll be unseeded

03:43in the draw and they will face a really difficult task. It's not yet known exactly who they'll

03:49form. Some of the names that are in the seeded part of the section include Portuguese side Braga,

03:54Ukrainians, and Ehrlich from Belgium, who of course Hibbs played in the 90s, Sheriff Tirispol from

04:02Moldova, FC Midgetland from Denmark and Legia Warsaw from Poland. That's some of the teams that Hibbs

04:08could face. Big ask for David Gray's men to get through that round. The good news for them though,

04:12is that if they were to lose, they would drop into the Conference League third qualifying round. They'd be

04:18unseeded however in that draw. It would be unknown in the Europa League where they'd be. It would depend

04:24on who they were pitted against and what the coefficient was. So Hibbs are guaranteed at least

04:29two rounds of European football. If they were to progress in the Europa League then they would have

04:34a parachute every step of the way. Conference League however third qualifying round would be

04:40a defeat there would signal the end of their European aspirations. Dundee United, well their Europa League

04:49berth that they secured in the league lasted only a week because Aberdeen's win meant they drop into

04:53the Conference League and Jim Goodwin's side are in the second qualifying round for that tournament

04:59as well. They are seeded for the draw. There's a lot of teams they could face and that will become

05:03clearer when UEFA start to put the pots together. If they were to progress to the third qualifying round

05:10however they would be unseeded and probably the same in the playoff round as well. Like Hibbs they have to

05:17navigate three qualifying rounds to get to a main phase of the competition and so again it's a tall

05:25order for them but there are some potentially glamorous opponents lying in wait for some of

05:30our clubs. The dates to look forward to for all these fans well the first set of draws for the Scottish

05:36teams will take place on June the 18th and then the draws for the third qualifying rounds come in

05:43on July 24th. The playoff round draws take place on August the 4th. Let's hope that we have

05:50as many strong representatives from Scotland as possible.

Scottish teams in Europe explainer

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