Saints will learn their first European opponents this season when the Europa League draw takes place in Switzerland today.

Ronald Koeman’s men are entering the competition in the third qualifying round, and will play a two-legged tie over July 30 and August 6.

 

If they win through, they progress to the play-off round, where another success will take them through to the group stages.

Tomorrow’s draw takes place at midday, in Nyon, with Saints expected to be seeded.

Saints may not know for sure who they will face, as the winners of the previous round will not be confirmed for another week.

Here’s how the draw will work:

Entries

• Twenty-five clubs have a bye to this stage and will be joined by the winners of the 33 second qualifying round ties, which are played on 16 and 23 July.

Seedings

• In the seeding pots released on the morning of the draw, the teams are ranked by their coefficient or, in the case of clubs emerging from the second qualifying round ties, by the higher of the two coefficients involved – with 29 sides classified as seeded.

• The teams are further split into five groups containing an equal number of seeded and unseeded contenders. Every seeded club will meet an unseeded opponent from within the same group.

Draw procedure

• Each side in each seeding group is allocated a number. For the groups with the same numbers of teams, balls containing the seeded numbers are placed in one bowl, with balls for the unseeded numbers in the same group positioned in another.

• A ball is taken from each bowl and put into a large empty bowl in the middle, where they are shuffled.

• The clubs whose numbers correspond to the first ball drawn play their first game at home, against the teams whose numbers match the next ball drawn.

• One group will have a different number of clubs to the others; in that case the group will be drawn separately by the same procedure.

Ties

• All ties are played on 30 July and 6 August, with the play-off round draw at 13.00CET on 7 August.