Dutch masters hold no fear for Fenerbahçe

Last season's UEFA Cup winners Feyenoord will meet Turkish side Fenerbahçe SK in one of the most appetising ties of the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round.

Slight favourites
The Dutch side, winners of the European Champion Clubs' Cup in 1970, will start as slight favourites, but the Fenerbahçe vice-president Sadettin Saran was undaunted by the draw despite his side's poor showing in the Champions League last term, when they failed to earn a single point in the first group stage. 

'It will not be easy'
Saran said: “Feyenoord are a very good team, it will not be an easy match. We were disappointing last season, but we have made the necessary transfers. It is a big advantage that we are away in the first leg. We are confident. Last season we missed the Turkish title by two points and this season we will fight even harder. Turkish football is rising and hopefully we will continue this."

Unknown quantities
Manchester United FC were cautious after drawing the winner of the match between NK Zagreb and Hungarian side Zalaegerszegi TE, both of whom are unknown quantities to the English giants. "We are going to unknown territory," said United's assistant club secretary Ken Ranstone. "We've never played either of the sides before. But we are hopeful we can do well. We have no preferences, we will take what we are given."

Confident Celtic
Ronny Hawthorn, head of operations at Celtic FC, was hopeful after drawing the winner of the match between Slovakia's MŠK Zilina and FC Basel. "We are very pleased to be here," he said. "Firstly we have to find out who we will be playing following next week’s second qualifying round match. The winners of this match we will playing in the first leg at home in Glasgow and we are looking forward to playing the winner of that match whoever it is."

Too far ahead
Lukas Strohmayer, on the board at Grazer AK, refused to get drawn on the match against FC Lokomotiv Moscow with the second qualifying round tie against FC Sheriff Tiraspol still hanging over the team. “We have a lot of experience in playing against Russian teams and these are always tough matches. But next Wednesday we are playing against Sheriff Tiraspol and then we can speak about facing Lokomotiv Moscow. This season we want to get an international ranking and we should get into the top three clubs in our domestic league this year as well.”

Tough encounter
Lokomotiv's technical director, Hasan Bridziev, felt a difficult match lay ahead of the Russians whichever team came through. He said: “We are satisfied with the draw. We have a lot of experience with playing against Austrian teams. Of course, we will go and see the match next Wednesday between Grazer AK and Sheriff because we know that Sheriff can create surprises. In any case we will face tough matches in this third qualifying round.”

Greek opposition
NK Maribor have drawn tough Greek opposition in AEK Athens, if they first manage to see off APOEL Nicosia FC. Maribor president Koze Jagodnik said: “First we meet APOEL Nicosia, who are not so strong. After that we will see about AEK, who are much better."

'I'm satisfied'
In the battle of eastern Europe, PFC Levski Sofia or FC Skonto have drawn either FC Dynamo Kyiv or FC Pyunik. But Levski coach Slavoljub Muslin was just content to have missed a tie against any of the European superpowers. He said: “Dynamo have a good team, but I am glad that we won’t play against big sides like Internazionale [FC] or Manchester United. There were a lot of world-class clubs that we could have faced. However, we have to defeat Skonto first and then think about Dynamo. The draw is not that bad, I am satisfied.”