This season’s UEFA Conference League will see Chelsea travel to Heidenheim in the German Bundesliga and Panathinaikos in Athens. The draw for the league took held in Monaco on Friday.
The Stamford Bridge team, who placed sixth in the Premier League the previous season, is making their Conference League debut.
They will host FC Noah of Armenia, Shamrock Rovers of Ireland, and Gent of Belgium, who advanced to the league stage after four qualifying matches.
Chelsea, led by Enzo Maresca, will play Heidenheim, who made it through despite placing eighth in their inaugural German Bundesliga season the previous year.
Chelsea will also go to Asta of Kazakhstan and Panathinaikos, the previous runners-up in the European Cup.
The London team, who defeated Servette of Switzerland in the play-offs, will be looking to add the Conference League to their collection of trophies, which already includes two UEFA Super Cups, two Champions Leagues, two Europa Leagues, and two Cup Winners’ Cups.
Just like the other two European competitions, the Conference League is undergoing changes as of this season, despite just having been established three years ago.
A league phase has taken the role of the group stage, where all 36 clubs are combined into one group.
The teams compete in a total of six matches against one club from each of the six seeded pots, as opposed to the eight games per club in the Champions League and Europa League.
Fiorentina of Italy, runners-up the previous two seasons, including Olympiakos in the championship game of the previous campaign, are back in the mix.
The New Saints, the first team from the Welsh league system to compete at this level of a European competition, is one of their opponents.
Since Lens lost to Panathinaikos in the playoffs, there will be no French team participating in the league phase. Real Betis will represent Spain.
Notably, Hearts of Scotland will play Heidenheim at home and FC Copenhagen and Cercle Brugge away.
Shamrock Rovers from across the border will play Larne, the first Northern Irish league team to advance this far in a European competition. The New Saints will also be faced by the latter.
The exact dates of the fixtures will be disclosed by UEFA on Saturday; nevertheless, the opening games are slated for October 3 and the last matchday is set for December 19.
The Conference League final of this season will take place on May 28, 2019, in Wroclaw, Poland.
