On Friday, the attention of football fans in Dortmund will be firmly focused on Nyon, a remote municipality of 19,000 inhabitants in the Swiss canton of Vaud. It is here, in a town bordering Lake Geneva, that UEFA, European football's governing body, resides. And at 1pm, it will play host to the draw for the third qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League, a competition which Borussia Dortmund will enter on 30 July.

The 33 winners of the second qualifying round, which will be played on 16 and 23 July, and 25 other clubs - including the sixth-placed teams in Spain, England and Germany, the fifth-placed team from Italy, the fourth and fifth-placed outfits from Portugal and France, as well as the third and fourth-placed sides in Russia, Ukraine and the Netherlands - will make up the 58 participants in the third qualifying round.

Best UEFA coefficient, but return leg at home not guaranteed

With a UEFA coefficient of 99,883, Borussia Dortmund has the highest points total of all teams in the Europa League - but that does not guarantee a weak opponent or the right to play the return leg at home (third qualifying round: 30 July and 6 August).

Prior to the draw, a computer forms four groups of twelve clubs (each containing 6 teams from places 1 to 29 on the ranking list and 6 from places 30 to 58) and one group with ten clubs (5/5). The aim is for the groups to be at approximately the same level. Then a formula is applied to all groups to work out the draw. In the second round, the formula for the draw in the groups of 12 is: 1st vs. 10th, (11 - 2), (4 - 12), (3 - 9), (5 - 7) and 8th vs. 6th.

Opponent likely to remain unclear on Friday

The clubs ranked first in each of the groups will therefore play the third-weakest opponent and play the first leg at home. The second-best club, however, will play the return leg at home. The team ranked in fourth position will square off against the nominally weakest team.

It certainly leaves everything open for Borussia Dortmund, who could face a trip to Scandinavia, the Balkans or even Azerbaijan. It is also likely that the Black and Yellows won't discover their opponent on Friday; instead they will only know the first-leg winner of the second-round tie they have been paired with for the third round on 30 July and 6 August. Of the 29 unseeded teams, there are only eight clubs who - like Borussia - have already qualified for this round via their domestic league: Vitesse Arnhem (Netherlands), FK Jablonec (Czech Republic), Sturm Graz (Austria), AEK Larnaca (Cyprus), Hapoel Kiryat Shmona (Israel), Istanbul Basaksehir (Turkey), ASA Tirgu Mures (Romania) and SCR Altach (Austria).

Boris Rupert