The four Maltese teams in the 2012-13 UEFA competitions will discover their first opponents this afternoon when the draws for the opening two qualifying rounds are held in Nyon, Switzerland.

In the Champions League, Valletta are seeded along with Linfield (Northern Ireland) and Dudelange (Luxembourg) as six teams will be involved in the initial stage which will be played in the first two weeks of July (3/4-10/11).

The Maltese champions will play against either Tre Penne (San Marino), FC Lusitans (Andorra) or B36 Torshavn (Faroe Islands).

Last year Valletta also represented Malta in the Champions League. They cleared the first hurdle by beating San Marino’s Tre Fiori 5-1 on aggregate but then lost to Lithuania’s Ekranas 4-2 over two legs.

Among the sides in the Champions League second preliminary round (July 17/18-24/25), will be Switzerland’s FC Basel who reached the Last 16 of the tournament last season.

The 2013 Champions League final will be played at Wembley on May 25, 2013. This same stadium hosted the final of 2011 but with the English FA celebrating its 150th anniversary next year, UEFA decided to have the final staged again in North London.

Thanks to a better co-efficient, Malta will have three teams – Hibernians, Birkirkara and Floriana – in the hat for the Europa League draw. They will be among the 117 teams involved in the opening two qualifying rounds of the competition (July 5-12 and July 19-26).

Birkirkara, who lost to Albania’s Vllaznia 2-1 on aggregate last year, are seeded. However, Hibs and Floriana will be placed in the other pot and among the opponents they could be paired with are FC Twente (Holland) and Lech Poznan (Poland).

Floriana have good reason to forget their participation last year following a 9-0 aggregate loss to AEK Larnaca. The Cypriots went on to book their place in the group stages after ousting Norwegian team Rosenborg in the play-offs.

New regulations introduced this year will see six teams gaining a direct entry to the group stage of the Europa League.

These are Napoli (Italy), Lyon (France), Coimbra (Portugal), Rubin Kazan (Russia), who all won their domestic cup competitions, and Tottenham Hotspur (England) and Bayer Leverkusen (Germany).

Holders Atletico Madrid will also get a straight access to the groups which will include 31 play-off winners and ten sides that fail to make the cut into the Champions League.

The final will be played at the Amsterdam Arena on May 15, 2013.

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