UEFA Europa League third qualifying round draw on Friday at 13:00

Excitement is building ahead of the draw for the third qualifying round of the 2015/16 UEFA Europa League. Tomorrow, Friday 17 July, U.C. Sampdoria will discover their opponents for their season opener on the continent, with the event at the home of European football’s governing body in Nyon streamed live on UEFA.com from 13:00.

Teams. Twenty-five sides will enter into this round automatically. They will be joined by the 33 winners from the second qualifying round ties, played on 16 and 23 July.

Seeds. Seedings will be decided based on teams’ coefficients, or in the case of those qualifying from the second round, based on the higher coefficient in the match played. There will be 29 seeds in total. The teams will be split into five groups made up of an identical number of seeded and non-seeded clubs. Every seeded team will meet a non-seeded side from the same group.

Draw procedure. Every team in each group will be assigned a number. For groups with the same number of teams, the balls with the seeded teams will be placed in one bowl, with the non-seeded ones in another. A ball will be drawn from each bowl and placed into a further bowl in the centre, where they will be shuffled. Teams drawn in the first ball from the centre bowl will play the first leg at home against teams drawn in the second. One group will have a different number of teams. In this instance, the group will drawn separately following the same procedure.

Matches. All third round ties will be played on 30 July and 6 August. The play-off draw is scheduled for 13:00 on 7 August.