The draw for the third qualifying round of the Europa League will be made on July 15th, when West Ham will find out who they will be playing on the 28th July, with the return leg scheduled for the 4th August.
There is a current predicament on The Olympic Stadium which could cause an issue, but this is expected to be sorted out in advance with no ground share needed. See here for more details on that.
So who could we face in the third qualifying round?
As many will remember from last year, the Europa League isn’t quite as glamorous in the early stages as there are teams from all over Europe getting their chance in the competition. West Ham will face either one of the teams that automatically qualifies for the third round, or one of the lower teams that have made their way through the initial qualifying rounds.
There are a massive group of over 100 teams to choose from, so we have picked a few of the stand out teams who we could face next season.
1st and 2nd round teams:
There aren’t many that we would have heard of here, but ones that we may know include…
Hibernian, Aberdeen or Hearts
Austria Wien
Slavia Prague
Shamrock Rovers, Cork City or St Patrick’s Athletic
Europa FC (?): Gilbratar’s finest
These would all have to get through their qualifying rounds to face West Ham but they would be nice fixtures for fans to travel to and wouldn’t be too much hassle. Especially compared to Dinamo Minsk from Belarus FK Rabotnicki from Macedonia.
Third Qualifying Round teams:
These teams are all already in the same pot as West Ham, and there are a few more household names among some unknown ones…
Lille or St Etienne
Celta Vigo
Sassuolo
Hertha Berlin
Spartak Moscow
AZ Alkmaar or Heracles
However, there are still some strange ones in the list including FC Viitorul Constanța of Romania and FC Oleksandriya, who finished 6th in Ukraine.
Last years opponents Birkirkara are in the First Qualifying round, while last years kryptonite Astra Giurgiu could make an appearance in the later rounds after winning the Romanian Liga 1.
There is a partially filled list on Wikipedia, that features that teams that have qualified for Europa so far, if you wanted to look at the whole list. There are over 125 potential opponents at this stage, so it’s anyone’s guess who we get next year.
