QR2 - The Most Important Draw Of The Summer For Scottish Football

Tomorrow Could Be A Pivotal Day For This Season's Coefficient

There are four qualifying rounds in each of UEFA’s three competitions, the Champions, Europa and Conference League. For each round, a draw is conducted to determine which teams will play each other. The teams in each path are split in two, based on club coefficient, to give a seeded and an unseeded ‘side’ of the draw.

Every seeded team is drawn to face an unseeded team, with the team that is drawn first playing the first leg at home - irrespective of seeding. This is only ‘in principle’ subject to any changes by UEFA, such as due to city clashes. Rangers may be subject to one of these ‘changes’ in this round of qualifying.

Before the draw, the seeded and unseeded teams will be further broken down into ‘groupings’, loosely based on a geographical split, which will narrow down potential opponents for each team. These groupings are released on the morning of each draw, you can read more on the regionalisation and groupings here.

I had an article published in The Sunday Herald at the weekend looking at Champions League Qualifying, which was as part of a piece I wrote for “The Rangers Review”, previewing European football at Rangers this summer.

The Sunday Herald, 15th June 2025

For Scottish football, the most important draw this summer will be the QR2 draw occurring tomorrow, Wednesday 18th June at 11am (UCL), midday (EL) and 1pm (ECL). I will explain why it is vitally important, with a section for Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hibernian and Dundee United, including:

• Why this draw is so important

• Potential opponents, sorted by difficulty

• Away day information (best airport & away allocations)

• What happens if progress

• What happens if lose

• Best outcome

WHY IS QR2 SO IMPORTANT?