Football
Dale Johnson, General Editor, ESPN FC 7y

Liverpool, Sevilla and Celtic learn possible UCL playoff opponents

The draw pots for Friday's Champions League playoff round draw can be confirmed after the latest qualifying ties were completed on Wednesday.

Sevilla, Napoli and Liverpool were already certain to be seeds in the league route -- the half of the draw for clubs who qualified but did not win their domestic championship -- before this week's games, and are now joined by CSKA Moscow and Sporting Lisbon.

They will be kept apart in the draw and paired against one of the five unseeded clubs: FCSB (Steaua Bucharest), Young Boys, Nice, Hoffenheim and Istanbul Basaksehir

The failure of neither Ajax or Dynamo Kiev to make it through the third qualifying round meant CSKA Moscow and Sporting were promoted to be seeded.

Liverpool go into the draw on a high after beating Bayern Munich 3-0 at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday night, before only losing to Atletico Madrid on penalties in the final of the Audi Cup after a 1-1 draw. They also beat Hertha Berlin 3-0 at the weekend at the beginning of the brief spell in Germany.

The draw will be made at 11 a.m. BST, 6 a.m. ET on Friday, with the two-legged ties to be played on Aug 15-16 and 22-23.

Champions League playoffs - League Route

Seeded clubs: Sevilla, Napoli, Liverpool, CSKA Moscow, Sporting Lisbon

Unseeded clubs: FCSB, Young Boys, Hoffenheim, Nice, Istanbul Basaksehir

Celtic will be seeded in the champions half of the draw after winning away to Rosenborg in the second leg of their third qualifying tie. The pots are as follows.

Champions League playoffs - Champions Route

Seeded clubs: Olympiakos, Celtic, FC Copenhagen, APOEL Nicosia, NK Maribor

Unseeded clubs: Qarabag FK, Hapoel Beer-Sheva, Slavia Prague, Astana, NK Rijeka

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