Olympique Lyonnais now knows a little more. With the end of the various domestic competitions (championships and cups), we now know the schedule for the preliminary rounds of the Champions League.
Fourth in Ligue 1, the Rhone club will have to go through two rounds to join PSG, RC Lens and Lille in the group stage. And it will begin at the beginning of August with the 3rd preliminary round, for which OL now know their potential opponents.
Thanks to its UEFA coefficient, Paulo Fonseca’s team will be seeded in this 3rd preliminary round. UEFA subtlety, the draw for this round, scheduled for July 20, will take place before the start of the next round, where Fenerbahçe and Sturm Graz will face Heart of Midlothian and Gornik Zabrze.
OL hopes to imitate Lille
We still know that the winner of the confrontation involving Fenerbahçe will be seeded, just like Bodo/Glimt, Olympiakos and therefore OL. For Les Gones, the adventure will begin against Union Saint-Gilloise, Sparta Prague, NEC Nijmegen or the winner of the Sturm Graz confrontation.
After this third preliminary round (August 4-5 and August 11), there will then be a play-off round (August 18-19 and August 25-26), where the Lyonnais could meet an opponent of a higher caliber (Fenerbahçe, Olympiakos, Bodo/Glimt, etc.). The objective? Do better than Nice, swept away by Benfica last year, and imitate Lille, who took this tortuous path by leaving Fenerbahçe and Slavia Prague two years ago.
