Borussia Dortmund will face PAOK Thessaloniki, FK Krasnodar and FK Qäbälä in Group C of the UEFA Europa League. “In purely sporting terms we cannot complain about this group”, said Hans-Joachim Watzke: “However we won’t take anything for granted and we will take each game seriously. Logistically, the far away destinations could be a challenge.”

All group matches will be played on a Thursday with a kick off time of either 19:00 or 21:05. The first match will take place on 17. September.

PAOK Thessaloniki, the Greek champions in 1976 and 1985 and cup winners in 1972, 1974, 2001 and 2003, finished third in the league last season. Russia’s third place team last season, FK Krasnodar, was only founded in 2008 and has participated in the Europa Cup regularly since 2013. In comparison to the other teams, Krasnodar seems the weakest team in the group. FK Qäbälä (also known as Gabala FK) finished in third place last season in Azerbaijan.

“We will be ready for these challenges”

By car the distance in total for the three games is 18,162 kilometres. “In sporting terms it is an interesting group but travel wise it could pose a few problems”, explained sports director Michael Zorc. “It is a very interesting group. An extraordinary atmosphere awaits us at PAOK, Krasnodar fields a strong Russian team with lots of foreign players and Qäbälä has got through to the group stages by knocking out Panathinaikos. We will thoroughly prepare and we will be ready for these challenges”, said Head Coach Thomas Tuchel in his assessment.

UEFA will publish the finalised schedule some time today.