The Macedonian players and their respective clubs, who are still active at this point of the competition, learned their opponents for the Champions League and Europa League play-off round.
When it came to the Champions League play-off draw, two clubs featured Macedonian players on their rosters in Steaua București (Daniel Georgievski) and Maribor (Agim Ibraimi). Steaua was seeded in the draw and had five possible opponents: Austria Wien, Legia Warszawa, Ludogorets, Shakhter Karagandy and Ibraimi’s Maribor. In the end, the draw pinned Steaua against the defending Polish champions Legia Warszawa.
Meanwhile, Maribor was unseeded in the draw and their potential opponents were the aforementioned Steaua București along with Dinamo Zagreb, Celtic, Basel and Viktoria Plzeň. All five of those teams would be considered heavy favorites over Maribor, who was ultimately drawn to square off against the reigning Czech champions Viktoria Plzeň.
The early prognosis is that Steaua is slightly favored to get past Legia, while Maribor faces an uphill challenge against battle tested Viktoria Plzeň. Both Georgievski and Ibraimi will be aiming to join Goran Pandev as Macedonian internationals participating in the Champions League group stages. As a reminder, Pandev and his team Napoli received an automatic spot in the group stages by finishing 2nd in Italy’s Serie A last season.
The Europa League play-off draw, on the other hand, featured seven teams with a Macedonian player on their squad. The seven teams were St. Gallen (Muhamed Demiri), Astra (Mirko Ivanovski), Zulte Waregem (Aleksandar Trajkovski), Apollon (Bojan Markoski), Dinamo Tbilisi (Darko Glishikj), Qarabağ (Muarem Muarem) and Skënderbeu (Muzafer Ejupi).
Two of those teams, Zulte Waregem and Skënderbeu, moved over to the Europa League after being eliminated in the third qualifying round of the Champions League. Additionally, due to injuries, Muhamed Demiri of St. Gallen and Bojan Markoski of Apollon are not expected to take part for their respective teams. Demiri is recovering from a meniscus injury that has kept him out longer than expected, while Markoski is sidelined with a ruptured achilles tendon.
From the group, the Macedonian player that received the most attractive opponent is Darko Glishikj whose team Dinamo Tbilisi was drawn to face off against English side Tottenham. The other six matchups were: Zulte Waregem – APOEL, Astra – Maccabi Haifa, St. Gallen – Spartak Moskva, Qarabağ – Eintracht Frankfurt, Apollon – Nice, and Skënderbeu – Chornomorets.