Union Saint-Gilloise will face the English football heavyweights Liverpool in Group E of the Europa League following Friday's group stages draw in Monaco. The other opponents in the group are LASK Linz and Toulouse.
The Brussels side, who qualified for the Europa League group stages for the second year in a row, were drawn from the third pot against Liverpool, Austria's LASK Linz and France's Toulouse.
Six-time Champions League winners Liverpool finished fifth in the Premier League last season. The Reds, whose ranks include Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah, were directly qualified for the group stage of the Europa League. Liverpool have already won this European competition three times.
Among the other teams in the group, LASK Linz finished third in the Austrian league, while Toulouse were last season’s French Cup winners.
Can Union better last season?
The group stage will be completed from 21 September 21 to 14 December. The group winners advance to the Last-16.
The runner-ups enter into a play-off round against a team that has finished third in their Champions League group. In case of a third placed finished in the Europa League group stage, a team moves down to the play-off round of the Conference League, where a match-up with runners-up awaits.
Last season, Union Saint-Gilloise won the Europa League group stage with ease last season, and went on to reach the quarter finals before being eliminated by Bayer Leverkusen.
Union eliminated Swiss FC Lugano on Thursday night in the last preliminary round of the Europa League. After last week’s 2-0 win at Lotto Park, Union went on to win 0-1 in Switzerland.
On Thursday, Belgian champions Antwerp were also drawn against football titans Barcelona, Porto and displaced Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk.
