Scotland's Europa League hopes: likely opponents and seedings for clubs

Hearts' David Templeton faces Jake Livermore of Spurs in last year's Europa League play-off© SNS Group

Scottish football will be represented by Heart of Midlothian, Dundee United and St Johnstone in next season’s Europa League.

Hearts enter at the latest stage of qualifying having defeated Hibernian in the Scottish Cup final on Saturday. Their early stages qualification for finishing fifth is now taken by St Johnstone. Dundee United take the other place by virtue of finishing fourth in the SPL.

It is possible that none of the three sides will be seeded in their respective rounds, with St Johnstone standing the best chance of being in the seeded hat for their second round ties.

St Johnstone

The Perth men enter in the second qualifying stage and have a slim hope of being seeded for the draw.

It would require both Levski Sofia and Litex Lovech to qualify for the Europa League places in the Bulgarian A PFG, or one of those teams plus FC Zestafoni to finish as runners-up in Georgia, to force the Saints into the unseeded pot.

If Steve Lomas’s side is seeded, they face potential ties with Bohemians of Dublin, Welsh side Bangor City or Skonto Riga of Latvia.

If St Johnstone are unseeded, potential opponents include Sparta Prague, big-spending Russians Anzhi Makhachkala and Red Star Belgrade of Serbia.

The second qualifying round games will be played on July 19 and 26 and the draw is made on June 25.

Dundee United

Peter Houston’s team will take their bow in the tournament in the third qualifying round.

The Terrors would require a number of big shocks in the earlier rounds to have a chance of being seeded. St Johnstone will join them in the unseeded pot should they progress.

Potential opponents for Dundee United include European giants Internazionale of Milan, England’s Liverpool and Olympique Marseille.

Other possible ties are Hannover 96 in Germany, Dinamo Moscow and Steaua Bucharest.

The third round qualifying matches are played on August 2 and 9, with the draw made on July 20.

Heart of Midlothian

The play-off, or fourth qualifier, will have Hearts in the unseeded pot. If Motherwell lose their third round Champions League qualifying tie, they will join the Edinburgh club in the draw.

Dundee United and St Johnstone would also be unseeded if they are to win their matches.

In addition to the big names in the third round, the Scottish clubs could face Bordeaux, VFB Stuttgart, Metalist Kharkiv of Ukraine, Lazio, AEK Athens, Newcastle United, CSKA Moscow or Paulo Sergio’s former club, Sporting CP of Lisbon.

The play-off round will be played on August 23 and 30. Hearts and the possible others will find out who they face in the draw on August 10.

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