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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Mark McDougall

Celtic to face Riga as Europa League third round rivals emerge after freak weather delay

Celtic will travel to Latvia to take on Riga in the Europa League third-qualifying round next week.

The Hoops had to wait an extra 12 hours after the initial tie between Riga and San Marino outfit Tre Fiori was abandoned.

High winds forced both teams off the pitch after just eight minutes and there were fears for Riga they would have to forfeit the match.

It was finished off on Friday morning and the Latvian side ran out 1-0 winners to set up the clash with Celtic next Thursday night.

(Bill Murray/SNS Group)

The only goal of the game came from Pedrinho early in the second half and they held on to make sure they could set up glamour tie for Riga next week.

Riga were founded just six years ago and are managed by former Spartak Moscow boss Oleg Kononov.

Neil Lennon's side will find out who they could face in the playoff round on Friday, providing they beat Riga.

On Friday morning, UEFA broke the draw down into three groups, with the Premiership champions in Group 2.

The two seeds in the group, Dynamo Brest and Crvena zvezda (Red Star Belgrade), will be drawn against two of the unseeded ties.

Afterwards, it becomes an open draw, meaning Celtic could avoid playing one of the seeds who have dropped in from the Champions League.

Other potential opponents include Bulgarian outfit Ludogorets or FK Sarajevo, who the Hoops defeated in Champions League qualifying in 2019.

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