Valletta, Balzan and Floriana experienced mixed fortunes in yesterday’s first qualifying round draw of the Europa League held in Nyon yesterday.

Surely Valletta were the happiest of the Maltese trio as being one of the seeded sides in yesterday’s draw, due to their high UEFA co-efficient, they were given a comfortable-looking draw against Folgore of San Marino.

Balzan and Floriana were handed much difficult tasks as the Reds were paired with Hungarian side Videoton while the Greens will be up against Serbian giants Red Star Belgrade.

Valletta will surely fancy their chances of making it to the second qualifying round as on paper they look stronger than Folgore who qualified to the UEFA club competition after placing third in the San Marino league last season.

For the Citizens this will be their second meeting with a team from San Marino in recent years as in 2011 they faced Tre Penne in the Champions League qualifiers, winning both legs 3-1 and 2-0 to progress 5-1 on aggregate.

Last season, Folgore also played in the Europa League qualifiers and were ousted by Cypriot side AEK Larnaca 6-1 on aggregate in the first qualifying round.

The winner of the tie will be facing Dutch side FC Utrecht in the second qualifying round.

Red Star Belgrade will be travelling to Malta for a second successive year when they were drawn to face Floriana.

Last season, the Serbians played Valletta in the Champions League qualifiers in the second qualifying round and went through after winning both legs with an identical 2-1 scoreline.

Red Star had to settle for Europa League football this season after finishing second in the Serbian League, just three points adrift of city rivals Partizan Belgrade.

Red Star will host the first leg on June 29 with the second leg to be played in Malta on July 6.

Kazakhstan’s Irtysh Pavlodar and Bulgaria’s Dunav Ruse await the winner in the second qualifying round.

Balzan will head to Eastern Europe to face Hungary’s Videoton.

The Reds are bracing themselves for a very difficult tie as Videoton are one of the strongest sides in Hungary in recent years.

They won the league title twice in 2011 and 2015 and last season they placed second, just three points behind champions Honved.

Last summer they reached the third qualifying round of the Europa League.

Videoton ousted Moldova’s FC Zaria Balti 3-2 on aggregate before they ousted Serbia’s Cukaricki 3-1 over the two matches.

They were eventually eliminated by FC Midtylland of Denmark 2-1 on aggregate.

Balzan or Videoton will be up against Nomme Kalju, of Estonia, or B36 Torshavn, of the Faroe Islands.

First qualifying round draw

Red Star (Serbia) vs Floriana (Malta)

Valletta (Malta) vs Folgore (San Marino)

Videoton (Hungary) vs Balzan (Malta)

First legs: June 29.

Second legs: July 6.

Second qualifying round DRAW

N. Kalju/B36 vs Videoton/Balzan

Valletta/Folgore vs Utrecht

Pavlodar/D. Ruse vs Red Star/Floriana

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.