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After playing the qualifying tournament matches in the UEFA Cup, the draws for the first main tournament stage will take place on Friday in Monaco, dividing the clubs into 40 pairs.
Joining the 32 teams that successfully advanced to the second qualifying round are 29 clubs who automatically qualified for this stage, as well as three Intertoto Cup winners and 16 teams who lost in the third qualifying round of the Champions League. The winners of this stage will later be divided into eight groups playing five matches each and then four matches within each group.
The defending champions of the cup, Moscow's "CSKA" with D. Sembers, will face Danish "Midtjylland", while Lisbon's "Sporting" will meet T. Zvirgzdauksko's "Halmstads". The draw was not very favorable for two Spanish clubs - "Sevilla" will compete against "Mainz", while "Osasuna" will face "Rennes". The third Spanish team "Espanyol" will play against "Tepliče".
Other top clubs have been drawn against slightly easier opponents - "Monaco" will face "Willem II", 2000 champion "Galatasaray" will play against "Tromso", another Istanbul club "Besiktas" will face "Malmo", 2002 champion "Feyenoord" will meet Bucharest's "Rapid", European debutant "Bolton" will face Plovdiv's "Lokomotiv", while the non-qualifying for the Champions League "Everton" will play against Bucharest's "Dinamo".
From the Intertoto Cup, "Marseille" will face "Germinal Beerschot", "Hamburg" will play against "Kobenhavn", and "Lens" will compete against "Groclin". The Italian Cup finalist "Roma" will play against "Aris", "Sampdoria" will face Setubal's "Vitoria", and "Palermo" awaits "Anorthosis". German clubs "Hertha" and "Stuttgart" will compete against "APOEL" and "Domžale" respectively, Leverkusen's "Bayer" will face the team that defeated them on their own turf, Sofia's "CSKA", while the Levski neighborhood of the city will see "Levski" play against "Auxerre".
The N.Barasos "Krylja Sovetov" club will face a tough opponent, last season's semi-finalist Alkmaar's "AZ", while another Russian club Zenit, along with R. Poskumi, will also have a tough match against Athens' "AEK". Russian champions "Lokomotiv" will face the well-known to Lithuanians "Brann", and the strongest team in Ukraine, "Shakhtar", will play against "Debrecen".
UEFA Cup first stage pairs (Teams listed first will host the first leg on September 15th at home, and the return leg will be played away on September 29th)
"Auxerre" (France) - Sofia's "Levski" (Bulgaria) "Hamburger" (Germany) - "Kobenhavn" (Denmark) Prague's "Slavia" (Czech Republic) - "Cork City" (Ireland) Donetsk's "Metalurg" (Ukraine) - Salonika's "PAOK" (Greece) Bucharest's "Dinamo" (Romania) - Liverpool's "Everton" (England) "MyPa" (Finland) - Zurich's "Grasshopper" (Switzerland) Belgrade's "Crvena Zvezda" (Serbia and Montenegro) - "Braga" (Portugal) Antwerp's "Germinal Beerschot" (Belgium) - "Marseille" (France) Leverkusen's "Bayer" (Germany) - Sofia's "CSKA" (Bulgaria) Moscow's "CSKA" (Russia) - "Midtjylland" (Denmark) Setubal's "Vitoria" (Portugal) - Genoa's "Sampdoria" (Italy) "Sevilla" (Spain) - "Mainz" (Germany) "Basel" (Switzerland) - "Široki Brijeg" (Bosnia and Herzegovina) Rotterdam's "Feyenoord" (Netherlands) - Bucharest's "Rapid" (Romania) Edinburgh's "Hibernian" (Scotland) - Dnipropetrovsk's "Dnipro" (Ukraine) "Rennes" (France) - "Osasuna" (Spain) Guimaraes' "Vitoria" (Portugal) - Krakow's "Wisla" (Poland) Samara's "Krylja Sovetov" (Russia) - Alkmaar's "AZ" (Netherlands) "Stuttgart" (Germany)- "Domžale" (Slovenia) "Valerenga" (Norway) - Bucharest's "Steaua" (Romania) Graco "AK" (Austria) - "Strasbourg" (France) Moscow's "Lokomotiv" (Russia) - Bergen's "Brann" (Norway) "Palermo" (Italy) - Famagusta "Anorthosis" (Cyprus) "Halmstads" (Sweden) - Lisbon's "Sporting" (Portugal) "Middlesbrough" (England) - "Xanthi" (Greece) P. Tikva's "Maccabi" (Israel) - Belgrade's "Partizan" (Serbia and Montenegro) Salonika's "Aris" (Greece) - "Roma" (Italy) Istanbul's "Besiktas" (Turkey) - "Malmo" (Sweden) Lovech's "Litex" (Bulgaria) - "Genk" (Belgium) Ostrava's "Banik" (Czech Republic) - "Heerenveen" (Netherlands) Berlin's "Hertha" (Germany) - Nicosia's "APOEL" (Cyprus) "Teplice" (Czech Republic) - Barcelona's "Espanyol" (Spain) "Monaco" (France) - Tilburg's "Willem II" (Netherlands) Stavanger's "Viking" (Norway) - Vienna's "Austria" (Austria) "Brondby" (Denmark) - "Zurich" (Switzerland) "Lens" (France) - Grodzisko "Groclin" (Poland) "Tromso" (Norway) - Istanbul's "Galatasaray" (Turkey) "Bolton" (England) - Plovdiv's "Lokomotiv" (Bulgaria) Donetsk's "Shakhtar" (Ukraine) - "Debrecen" (Hungary) St. Petersburg's "Zenit" (Russia) - Athens' "AEK" (Greece)
