Liverpool will play Romanians Steaua Bucharest, Italians Napoli and Dutch side FC Utrecht in the Europa League group stages.
The draw for the group stages was made at lunch time today, with Liverpool looking to go all the way to the final at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium this year after being knocked out by Atletico Madrid at the semi-final stage last time round.
The Reds got drawn into group K, the 11th of 12 groups at this stage of the competition after booking their place in the tournament thanks to qualifying round wins over FK Rabotnicki of Macedonia and Trabzonspor of Turkey.
Group K
Liverpool
Steua Bucharest
Napoli
FC Utrecht
Bucharest sneaked through to the group stages with a win on penalties after a 1-1 draw on aggregate against Grasshoppers, whilst Utrecht beat Celtic 4-2 on aggregate, including a resounding 4-0 win last night.
Meanwhile Manchester City were paired with Juventus, Salzburg and Lech, whilst Aston Villa failed to qualify for the group stage.
The first matchday of the Europa League is 16th September, 2010 with fixtures and kick-off times still to be confirmed.
Discuss the draw in the forums here.
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