Champions League: A guide to who Glasgow City & Celtic will face

While Celtic step into the unknown, there are familiar faces for Glasgow City

On Friday, Celtic learned they will face Spanish side Levante in their first ever Champions League tie, while Glasgow City will take on previous opponents Birkirkara of Malta.

Should Celtic win their one-legged tie, they will meet either FC Minsk or Rosenborg for a place in round two.

Champions City, meanwhile, will have a reunion with former foes WFC BIIK-Shymkent of Kazakhstan or Slovakia’s Slovan Bratislava if they are to progress to round two.

The ties will be played on 18 and 21 August.

Read on for Anyone’s Game guide to who the Scottish pair will have to tackle in their bid to reach the lucrative group stages.

How it will work for Scottish clubs

First, it’s a completely new qualifying system this year.

Round one: One venue will host four teams in each knockout mini-tournament; comprising of semi-finals, a third-place match and a final. Clubs met after the draw to discuss who will host the games and an announcement is expected this weekend.

The winners of the final progress to round two.

Round two: This will be a home-and-away tie with the victor reaching the group stage.

City take on previous opponents

City, who are currently managerless after Scott Booth accepted an offer to become the new head coach of Birmingham City, were seeded second in the champions path of the qualifiers, and they were put into a four-team group with the only side with more coefficient points than them - BIIK Shymkent, who also go by the name of BIIK Kazygurt. Ring any bells - the Kazakhstan knocked City out on away goals in the last 32 of the competition in 2017-18. City had gone down 3-0 in the away leg, then fell behind at home before storming back to win 4-1, but they couldn’t find the fifth with Leanne Ross hitting the post from a penalty.

The likelihood is the two will meet in the final unless Birkirkara or Slovan Bratislava can cause a major shock.

Skymkent have fallen to Bayern Munich in the last 16 in the last two seasons of the Champions League. Last season they squeezed through on away goals in the last 32 against Ukraine’s Kharkiv.

City have also faced the other two teams in their section before. They won 4-0 against Slovan Bratislava in the qualifying group stage in 2010-11, and were 9-0 winners over Birkirkara at the same stage in 2013-14.

Fran Alonso faces Spanish opposition

It was perhaps meant to be that in their first ever Women’s Champions League tie Celtic would be paired with a side from Spain, head coach Fran Alonso’s homeland.

Levante finished third in last season’s La Liga, 29 points behind winners Barcelona and four points adrift of second-place Real Madrid.

Esther Gonzalez was their key player, scoring 28 goals in the league last season, beaten in the scoring chart only by Barcelona’s Jennifer Hermoso.

This is their first time playing in Europe since the Uefa Women’s Cup in 2008-09, before the competition became the Champions League.

While they will be huge favourites for the tie, Celtic will feel they could have had it much worse, with the likes or Arsenal, Hoffenheim and even the unseeded AC Milan all in the mix.

Should Celtic win, they will face the winners of FC Minsk and Rosenborg in the final.

Rosenborg are a relatively new club, merging with the men’s side only last year and changing from their previous incarnation of SK Trondheims-Orn. In their first season they were runners-up in the Norwegian league, losing out on the title only on goal difference. They were the only team to complete the league season unbeaten, but they drew eight of their 18 games, including two draws against the eventual winners Valerenga.

They have the advantage in that their season is already under way - the league began in May. They have five wins from five so far, but again sit second on goal difference behind Valerenga.

FC Minsk have long been the dominant team in Belarus, but after seven titles in a row they had to settle for second last season behind city rivals Dinamo Minsk.

They reached the last 32 of the Champions League last season before going out to Norwegian opposition with LSK Kvinner beating them 2-1 on aggregate, with the Belarus side winning the home leg 1-0 which suggests it could be another tight tie between them and Rosenborg.

Bigger then ever before

This year is a revamped competition. Uefa projects that a total €24 million will be distributed - more than four times greater than the current figure - either as rewards to competing clubs or as ‘solidarity payments’ to non-competing clubs.

Every club that reaches the group stage will receive a minimum of €400,000. The winner stands to earn €1.4m.

Not only that, but ‘solidarity payments’ mean other Scottish clubs could benefit too. €5.6m will be redistributed. How much of that Scotland gets is all down to how well our two entrants perform.

New TV deal

Uefa have signed a four-year global broadcasting partnership with streaming platform DAZN, together with YouTube.

For the first two seasons (2021/22 and 2022/23), fans will be able to watch live and on demand all 61 matches from the group stage onward on DAZN, and free on DAZN's YouTube channel.

For the following two seasons (2023/24 and 2024/25), all 61 matches will be shown live on DAZN, while 19 matches will be free to view on DAZN's YouTube channel.

Full draw

Champions path

Group 1
Breidablik (ISL) vs KÍ Klaksvík (FRO)
Gintra (LTU) vs Flora Tallinn (EST)

Group 2
Glasgow City (SCO) vs Birkirkara (MLT)
BIIK-Shymkent (KAZ) vs Slovan Bratislava (SVK)

Group 3
Anderlecht (BEL) vs Hayasa (ARM)
Osijek (CRO) vs Breznica Pljevlja (MNE)

Group 4
SFK 200 Sarajevo (BIH) vs Racing FC Union Luxembourg (LUX)
SL Benfica (POR) vs Kiryat-Gat (ISR)

Group 5
Universitatea Olimpia Cluj (ROU) vs Åland United (FIN)
Servette FC Chênois (SUI) vs Glentoran (NIR)

Group 6
CSKA Moskva (RUS) vs Swansea City (WAL)
Apollon LFC (CYP) vs Dinamo-BSUPC (BLR)

Group 7
PAOK (GRE) vs Agarista CSF Anenii Noi (MDA)
Vålerenga (NOR) vs Mitrovica (KOS)

Group 8
Juventus (ITA) vs Kamenica Sasa (MKD)
St. Pölten (AUT) vs Beşiktaş (TUR)

Group 9
Twente (NED) vs WFC Nike (GEO)
Spartak Subotica (SRB) vs Peamount United (IRL)

Group 10
WFC Kharkiv (UKR) vs NSA Sofia (BUL)
Pomurje Beltinci (SVN) vs Rīgas Futbola skola (LVA)

Group 11
Ferencváros (HUN) vs Czarni Sosnowiec (POL)
Direct to final: Vllaznia (ALB)

Enter in round 2:
Sparta Praha (CZE), Häcken (SWE), Køge (DEN)

League path

Group 1
Hoffenheim (GER) vs Valur (ISL)
Zürich (SUI) vs AC Milan (ITA)

Group 2
Brøndby (DEN) vs Kristianstad (SWE)
Bordeaux (FRA) vs Slovácko (CZE)

Group 3
Levante (ESP) vs Celtic (SCO)
FC Minsk (BLR) vs Rosenborg (NOR)

Group 4
Arsenal (ENG) vs Okzhetpes (KAZ)
PSV Eindhoven (NED) vs Lokomotiv Moskva (RUS)

Enter in round 2:Lyon (FRA), Wolfsburg (GER), Manchester City (ENG), Slavia Praha (CZE), Rosengård (SWE), Real Madrid (ESP)