Qarabag, of Azerbaijan, today became the first two team to qualify for the Champions League play-off round. The rest of the teams will be known tomorrow after the rest of the second leg matches. They will join the other teams who didn't have to go through the qualifying rounds to be in the play-off round. The winners of that round will join the even more privileged teams in the group stages, the teams who were off playing money making exhibition matches in America and Asia while the Champions of smaller nations were playing qualifying matches at the beginning of July, a few weeks after the end of the previous season.
I love how UEFA calls this round the play-off round whereas all the ones before were qualifying rounds. It adds a bit more glamour and prestige, I guess.
One team looking to not suffer the humiliation of an an early, pre-play-off round exit is Celtic. After running away with the Scottish league last year, literally out of sight by December, they found their Norwegian opponents Rosenborg a bit tougher then Hearts, Inverness or even Rangers. They go to Norway not defending a lead but needing to score after a 0-0 draw.
I would have marked Olympiacos-Partizan Belgrade down as a big one for this round with matches between Serbian and Greek teams, in any sport, always seemingly tight and passionate. However, after Olympiacos won 3-1 in Belgrade the second leg could be a formality. But I will be imagining that I was watching it on TV and hoping for an early Partisan goal to make it interesting. Come December and a meaningless last round group stage match it is winner takes all matches like this that I will be wishing we could see more of.
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