Kesher Talk

Maccabi Haifa becomes first Israeli soccer team to ever qualify for the UEFA Champions League: Maccabi Haifa muscled its way into history on Wednesday night, clinching a spot in UEFA's Champions League group stages, after holding Sturm Graz to a 3-3 draw at Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium in Graz, Austria. The result of completed a 5-3 aggregate victory for Haifa.

Haifa's coach Yitzhak Schum couldn't hide his delight at becoming the first coach to lead an Israeli side to Europe's top-32 clubs competition.

The draw takes place in Monaco this evening at 5 p.m. (live on Sport 5+).

The Haifaites advanced together with 15 clubs through the qualifying rounds. Defending champion Real Madrid is among the 16 clubs that are already in the hat, after being allocated automatic entry on the basis of their performances in their domestic leagues.

The 32 contestants will be drawn into eight groups of four teams. Each group will contain a team from one of the eight top seeds, plus a team from second, third, and fourth-ranked sides.

The winners and runners-up in each group will advance.

All teams will be allocated to four pots in accordance with the seeding principles, based on the UEFA list of club coefficients.

Teams from the same country will not be drawn into the same group. If two teams from the same association qualify, they will be paired to split their matches between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Real Madrid (Esp), Bayern Munich (Ger), Man Utd (Eng), Barcelona (Spa), Valencia (Spa), Juventus (Ita), Arsenal (Eng), and Inter Milan (Ita) were ranked as the eight top seeds and will avoid each other in the draw.

The eight teams who are ranked as second seeds are: Deportivo La Coruna(Spa), last season's finalists Bayer Leverkusen Ger), Liverpool (Eng), Galatasaray (Tur), AS Roma (Ita), Olympic Lyon (Fra), Borussia Dortmund (Ger) and Feyenoord (Hol).

Haifa who were ranked 41st prior to last night's return leg will also seemingly avoid facing Newcastle Utd who was seeded 26th and placed in the fourth-ranked pool.

posted by Howard @ 8/29/2002 10:32:57 AM