Curiosity! If Sparta wants to get to the third basket, they have to cheer against Slavia

The draw for the Europa League and Conference Europa League groups will take place on Friday. It is not yet known which basket Sparta Prague will be in. Thursday’s playoff results will decide that.

Moldova’s Sheriff Tiraspol completed their amazing tale on Wednesday. After advancing through three preliminary rounds, it also made it through the play-offs, in which it challenged Dinamo Zagreb after a 3-0 win and a 0-0 draw.

This is the first time a team from Moldova has qualified for the Champions League group stage, but it did not please Sparta players at all. The team from Letna remains in the fourth basket before Friday’s draw.

Dinamo Zagreb, which will play in the Europa League group after dropping out of the Champions League, clearly has a higher club coefficient (44,500) than Sparta (17,500), while if Tiraspol (14,500) had dropped one competition lower, it would have put Sparta in basket number three.

Thus, Pavel Vrba and his charges must hope for promotion to the group of one of the outsiders. Alashkert of Armenia, who lost their first game to Rangers 0-1, have a chance and the Scottish champions travel to Armenia weakened by a covid-19.

Spartan fans will also be cheering for HJK Helsinki, the Finnish team needs to win against Fenerbahce, whom they lost 0:1 in the first game. Cluj (first match 0:4 against CZ Belgrade) and Slovan Bratislava (loss 0:3 against Olympiakos) have only a slight chance to qualify.

The funny thing is that Legia Warsaw’s promotion to the third basket may also help them to move up. The latter has the best record of the five players mentioned, and any win in the home rematch is enough to advance to Europe.

The cards are thus clearly dealt, if one of the trio Legia Warsaw, Alashkert, HJK Helsinki qualifies for the Europa League, Sparta will be in the third basket. Otherwise, it will go into the pool from the lowest seeded slot.

Football coefficient ranking