Who could Rangers draw in their first Champions League qualifier?

There’s a new regime and a new management team in place at Rangers this summer, but the new season will kick off with a familiar challenge for the Ibrox club.

Last season’s second-place finish in the Premiership gave Rangers a chance to reach the riches and glamour of the Champions League, but the team will need to get through three rounds of qualifying to reach the elite stage.

That journey will begin in late July, with the second qualifying round giving new head coach Russell Martin his first taste of competitive football, and the stakes are high.

A new-look team needs to be assembled, Martin’s method’s need to be communicated to players and the opportunity is there to build momentum from the start. The head coach and his support staff will take some encouragement that they can already start studying their possible opponents, with only three possible outcomes awaiting them at the first hurdle.

Rangers are in the ‘League Path’ of qualifying and already know that they are seeded for the second qualifying round. That means avoiding Red Bull Salzburg and Viktoria Plzen at this stage.

Lying in wait in Wednesday’s draw are Panathinaikos, Servette and Brann.

Rangers will play one of those three with the first leg scheduled for July 22/23 and the decisive return match on July 29/30. Each potential opponent presents their own challenge and a different test for the Ibrox side.

Servette

One of Switzerland’s oldest and most successful clubs, the 17-time title winners finished ten points behind Basel in the Super League last season.

Managed by Thomas Häberli, the side finished the season without a trophy after suffering a shock defeat early in the Swiss Cup, and were out of Europe by August. The team had a tough draw in the Europa League qualifiers where they were paired with Braga and beaten 2-1 in Geneva after a 0-0 draw away, then faced Chelsea after dropping into the Conference League and losing 3-2 over the two legs despite winning the second match.

Häberli’s side doesn’t contain any household names and showed mixed results over the course of the league season last term, but they went unbeaten from January to secure second place and could prove a tricky opponent.

Rangers have recent experience of playing Servette, having encountered them in the third qualifying round two years ago.

On that occasion, a James Tavernier penalty and a Cyriel Dessers goal gave Rangers a 2-1 lead from the first game at Ibrox, and Tavernier was on the scoresheet in a 1-1 draw in Geneva that saw the Premiership side progress.

Panathinaikos

Olympiacos finished last season as champions and took automatic qualification for the League Phase of Europe’s premier competition but Panathinaikos still finished the season on a high.

After 26 games the Shamrocks were sitting in third place, three points behind AEK Athens and looking at a place in the Europa League if things didn’t improve.

The Super League then split into the four-team championship play-offs and home and away wins over AEK helped Panathinaikos leapfrog them and claim the place in Champions League qualification.

The Greek side now hope for an improvement on last season in continental competition, with a run in the higher-level tournament.

They lost out to Ajax in Europa League qualifying last August but made the most of their consolation place in the Conference League play-off, beating Lens and going on to finish 13th in the League Phase. They saw off Vikingur in the first knock-out round but lost 5-4 on aggregate to Fiorentina in the round of 16.

Former Benfica, Al Nassr and Egypt boss Rui Victor is now going into his second season as manager and he has a multi-cultured squad that has some talented players out to make their mark.

Captain and Greece international Fotis Ioannidis leads the line while Brazilian winger Tete, once linked with Celtic, is a key player on one wing with former Manchester United player Facundo Pellistri on the other.

Brann

SK Brann return to Champions League qualifying for the first time since the 2008-09 season, with the Norwegians having spent the last two years trying without success to qualify for the Conference League.

Last year, they were defeated in the play-off round by Astana but only after knocking out Scottish opposition in the shape of St Mirren.

After a 1-1 draw in the first leg in Paisley, the teams were locked at 1-1 in Norway before goals in the 85th and 88th minute saw Brann pull clear and go through as 4-2 aggregate winners.

All four goal scorers from the tie remain with the club, and Freyr Alexandersson’s side are almost all Norwegian, with one notable exception being striker Nicolas Castro, who has been capped by Chile.

Progress in the top competition would be a major surprise but Brann may look at the Bodo/Glimt team that narrowly beat them to the title and believe that they are capable of making a splash in Europe.

One advantage Brann would have is that they are already 11 games into their league season and would be at peak fitness facing a Rangers side playing a first competitive game under new management.