The opponents in the group phase of the Conference League for Malta champions Hamrun Spartans are now known.
The draw for the league phase was held in Monaco this afternoon, and Hamrun were drawn against Shakhtar Donetsk of the Ukraine (home), Shamrock Rovers from the Republic of Ireland (away), L. Red Imps from Gibraltar (home), Jagiellona of Poland (away), Lausanne Sport of Switzerland (home) and Samsunspor of Turkey (away).
Hamrun Spartans made history on Thursday by becoming the first Maltese team to qualify for the main draw of a European competition.
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Europa League
The Europa League draw on Friday set up two rematches of European Cup finals and two games in Germany for Israeli club Maccabi Tel-Aviv.
Feyenoord, the 1970 champion of Europe, will host Celtic in one its league phase games and Nottingham Forest will have a home game against Swedish side Malmo, which was a semi-professional team in 1979 when it lost the European Cup title match to the English club.
Maccabi Tel-Aviv got away games in Germany against Stuttgart and Freiburg, and also will travel to play Aston Villa - in Birmingham, England - and PAOK in Greece.
Israeli clubs have been playing UEFA-organized games in neutral countries for security reasons during the conflict in Gaza, and Maccabi Tel-Aviv has hosted European games this season in Backa Topola, Serbia.
Maccabi Tel-Aviv's home games are against Dinamo Zagreb, Lyon, Midtjylland and Bologna.
Roma - whose coach Gian Piero Gasperini won the Europa League with Atalanta two season ago - will have two trips to Glasgow to to play fierce Glasgow rivals Celtic and Rangers among its eight opponents.
The Europa League uses the same 36-team league format as the Champions League. Teams play eight different opponents during the league phase and are ranked in a single-standings table.
Villa was one 11 teams in Friday's draw that played in the Champions League last season, though its coach Unai Emery is a four-time Europa League winner: three times with Sevilla and once with Villarreal.
Villa's slate of opponents includes a trip to Fenerbahce, which parted ways with coach Jose Mourinho earlier Friday.
Forest is in the second-tier Europa League instead of Crystal Palace, the English FA Cup winner which was demoted by UEFA in a complex case relating to owners having stakes in multiple clubs. Palace will play in the Conference League instead.
Forest and its Portuguese coach Nuno Espirito Santo will play two opponents from Portugal, at home to Porto and away to Braga.
The top eight teams go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th advance to the knockout playoffs in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.
The 36 Europa League teams will share a prize fund of 565 million euros ($659 million). Each club is guaranteed at least 4.3 million euros ($5 million).
Conference League
Fiorentina's quest to win the Conference League enters a fourth straight season with opponents including Mainz and Dynamo Kyiv from the draw ceremony on Friday.
The Italian club was top ranked in the 36-team draw after being twice a beaten finalist - against West Ham and Olympiakos in back-to-back years - and losing in the semifinals last season.
Fiorentina's slate of six opponents through mid-December was completed by Rapid Vienna, AEK Athens, Sigma Olomouc and Lausanne. UEFA aims to confirm the fixture schedule by Sunday.
Crystal Palace makes its European debut only reluctantly in the third-tier Conference League after a complex legal fight with UEFA.
The English FA Cup winner was demoted by UEFA from the Europa League for a breach of rules limiting investors having a significant stake in multiple clubs who qualify for the same competition. Lyon, majority owned by American businessman John Textor, stayed in the Europa League instead of Palace.
Palace gets home games against Alkmaar, KuPS Kuopio of Finland and AEK Larnaca from Cyprus. Palace will go to Poland to play Dynamo Kyiv and also visit Strasbourg and Ireland's Shelbourne.
Four clubs from Poland were in the draw, while Dynamo also has been playing games there - in Lublin - while Ukraine is unable to stage European games during the Russian military invasion.
Rapid Vienna will make two trips to Poland to play at Lech Poznan and Rakow Czestochowa.
Shakhtar Donetsk is having a rare season outside the Champions League, and will have trips to Ireland, Malta and Scotland to play Shamrock Rovers, Hamrun Spartans and Aberdeen.
Hamrun Spartans is the first club from Malta to qualify for the main phase of a European competition and also will host Switzerland's Lausanne and Gibraltar's Lincoln Red Imps.
Political football
UEFA kept Lincoln separate in the draw from Rayo Vallecano because of political tensions between Gibraltar and Spain. Drita of Kosovo was kept apart from Zrinjski Mostar of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
All the Polish teams, also including Legia Warsaw and Jagiellonia, were kept apart in the draw and can not play each other until the knockout stage next year.
Format and prize money
Conference League teams play six different opponents and are ranked in a single-standings format.
The top eight teams go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th advance to the knockout playoffs in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.
The Conference League has 285 million euros ($333 million) in UEFA prize money with each club getting a starting fee of 3.17 million euros ($3.7 million).