The draws for the qualifying stages of Uefa’s Champions League and Conference League competitions was made at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland on Tuesday. The draw for the first round of qualifying pits Luxembourg champions F91 Dudelange with KF Tirana, the Albanian Kategoria Superiore champions.

Dudelange will fancy their chances against a team that has failed to qualify for the group stage of the Europa League. F91 has twice made it to through qualifying, and famously faced Italian giants AC Milan in the Europa League first round group stages in 2018, alongside Real Betis of Spain and Olympiakos of Greece. They repeated the feat in 2019, getting to play Seville, APOEL of Cyprus and Qarabağ Futbol Klubu of Azerbaijan. 

The two teams will play each other home and away, with the first matches being played on 5 or 6 July and the return legs on 12 or 13 July. But that is just the start of what could be a long qualifying campaign, which is set to finish in mid-August with play offs that will determine which teams make it into the group stages of the prestigious tournament, with losers also eligible to try and proceed to the Conference League group stages. 

In the Conference League draw, Fola Esch faces semi-professional Tre Fiori FC based in Fiorentino, San Marino, while Differdange was matched up against NK Olimpija Ljubljana of Slovenia. These matches are scheduled for 7 and 14 July respectively.