Liverpool face a trip to Macedonia as they start their Europa League campaign on July 29th as FK Rabotnicki held out for a 0-0 draw against Mika to go through 1-0 across the two legs to face the top seeded Merseyside club.
The Reds were drawn against the winner of the clash between Armenian’s Mika and FK Rabotnicki of Macedonia during last week’s Europa League draw in Nyon.
Due to Rabotnicki’s fellow Macedonian side FK Teteks also making it through to the 3rd qualifying round UEFA have reversed the ties so that Liverpool now start with an away tie against FK Rabotnicki next Thursday (July 29) and will return to Anfield for the 2nd leg a week later, on August 5th, the reverse of the original draw.
Liverpool will look to build on their semi-final exit from last seasons campaign after falling into the Europa League after a dismal Champions League campaign. Roy Hodgson will hope at a personal level to reach the final once more as he did last season with his underdogs Fulham but this time walk away with more than a runners-up medal for his efforts.
It remains to be seen how many of Liverpool’s first team 11 will feature in the tie due to many of their World Cup stars only just returning from a three week rest period but for sure Liverpool will be looking to kick start their season in far better fashion than last years final one under Rafa Benitez. Anything but a reasonably straight forward passage into the tournament proper will no doubt have the pundits clambering for their paper columns.
Im doubtful that we will see any of the world cup stars playing in the first leg, and possibly not even the second. I guess this means that we will rely on Cole and Aqua to step up and play at their best, as the squad will be primarily made up of our younger players who do noy play regular first team football. This will be a difficult match for us if this is the case, not saying i don;t have faith in the younger lads, but thier inexperiance may ve a deciding factor. Fingers crossed….