Cypriot champions Omonia will host Turkish giants Besiktas in this season’s Europa League league phase, with the Istanbul-based side featuring on a star-studded fixture list for Henning Berg’s men in Europe this season.
Omonia will play four games at home and four away as part of the league phase, with their other three home games set to be played against Benfica and Celtic, who have won three European Cups between them, and Spanish outfit Celta Vigo.
On the road, they will play Juventus, who have themselves won two European Cups, French side Rennes, Slovenian champions Celje, and NEC Nijmegen of the Netherlands.
The dates of all eight fixtures will be announced on Saturday.
Besiktas finished in fourth place in last year’s Turkish Super League, and have a Cypriot connection of their own, with club chairman Serdal Adali’s father having originally been from Kyrenia. According to both Turkish public broadcaster TRT and newspaper Kibris, he holds a Republic of Cyprus passport.
The club have never before played a competitive match in Cyprus, despite having been drawn against Apoel in the 1986/87 European Cup.
However, according to newspaper Phileleftheros, Apoel faced “pressure from the government of the day, led by Spyros Kyprianou, and the church’s leadership”, and as such never travelled to Turkey.
Besiktas were handed a 3-0 walkover victory, and the second leg, due to be played at the old GSP Stadium in Nicosia, never took place. Apoel were initially handed a two-year ban from European competitions by governing body Uefa, though this was commuted to a single year.
Since then, Turkish and Cypriot teams facing off against each other in European competitions has become normalised, with Fenerbahce and Aek Larnaca being the most recent example in October 2022. Fenerbahce won 2-1 in Larnaca and 2-0 in Istanbul.
Of Omonia’s other opponents, Benfica finished third in last year’s Portuguese Primeira Liga, and have since strengthened, appointing former Fulham boss Marco Silva as their manager and bringing in former Aston Villa and Fenerbahce striker Jhon Duran on loan from Al-Nassr.
Celtic fell into the Europa League after giving up a four-goal aggregate lead in their Champions League qualifier against Austrian side Lask on Tuesday, eventually losing on penalties.
Celta Vigo, meanwhile, qualified for the Europa League by virtue of finishing in sixth place in last year’s La Liga. Stalwart Iago Aspas continues to lead their line, now in his 18th season in Celta’s first team.
Juventus will host Cypriot opposition for the second consecutive season, having beaten Pafos FC with two late goals in last season’s Champions League league phase.
Like Celta Vigo, they also finished sixth in their domestic league last season, and have since then brought in Randal Kolo Muani as attacking reinforcement, while holding onto star player Kenan Yildiz.
Rennes, too, finished sixth in their domestic league, while Celje will be well-known to Cypriot football fans after they knocked Apoel out of the Conference League at the knockout playoff stage the season before last. They eventually reached the quarterfinals that year, being knocked out by Fiorentina.
NEC Nijmegen are playing in Europe for the first time since 2009, having finished in third place in last season’s Eredivisie. They have strengthened further over the summer, signing former wonderkid Emre Mor and 111-cap Serbian international Dusan Tadic.
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