Celtic drawn against LASK as Hearts & Rangers discover opponents

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Celtic drawn against LASK as Hearts & Rangers discover opponents

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Celtic have been drawn against Austrian champions LASK in the Champions League play-off round.

Meanwhile, Rangers have been drawn against Larne and Iberia Tbilisi of Georgia in the Europa League play-offs should they defeat Jagiellonia Bialystok of Poland.

And Heart of Midlothian will take on either AGF Aarhus of Denmark or Sabah of Azerbaijan should they defeat Benfica.

Hearts, who dropped down to the Europa League after losing to Sturm Graz in Champions League qualifying, and Rangers will also find out their potential Conference League play-off opponents, should they lose those ties, when the draw for that competition is made at 13:00 BST.

Hibernian and Motherwell are also involved in that draw, with potential opponents becoming clearer after Uefa confirmed groupings on Monday morning.

Should Motherwell defeat HJK Helsinki of Finland, they will face either Atalanta (Italy), Freiburg (Germany), or the winners of ties between Panathinaikos (Greece) and CSKA (Bulgaria), Paide Linnameeskond (Estonia) and Rapid Vienna (Austria), or Sheriff Tiraspol (Moldova) and St Gallen (Switzerland) in a Conference League play-off.

Hearts will have the same possible opponents should they lost to Benfica.

If Rangers lose to Jagiellonia, they will face the winners of ties between Jablonec (Czech Republic) and RFS (Latvia), Zalgiris (Lithuania) and Hajduk Split (Croatia), Brann (Norway) and Apollon Limassol (Cyprus), Inter Turki (Finland) and Vaduz (Liechtenstein) or Noah (Armenia) and Sion (Switzerland).

Hibs’ reward should they defeat Shkendija of Macedonia is a possible tie against Brighton & Hove Albion, Monaco of France, the winner of the tie between Bohemians (Republic of Ireland) and Midtjylland (Denmark), the winners of IFK Gothenburg (Sweden) and Gent (Belgium), or the losers of Pafos (Cyprus) against Salzburg (Austria).

Celtic are at home to LASK in the first leg on 18 and 19 August, with the return game the following week.

LASK won their domestic title for the second time last season – their first since 1965 – and, like Martin O’Neill’s side, qualified directly for the play-off round.

Given they could have faced Viking Stavanger, Celje, Ararat-Armenia, Kairat Almaty, Levski Sofia, AGF Aarhus or Sabah instead, it is probably the toughest draw Celtic could have been given.

Dietmar Kuhbauer’s side have a lower coefficient than Celje, but the Austrian league is ranked much higher than Slovenia’s.

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