Best and worst case scenarios for West Ham in the…

Best and worst case scenarios for West Ham in the Europa Conference League draw

West Ham United will discover their Europa Conference League play-off qualifying round opponents on Tuesday afternoon.

Standing in the way of David Moyes’ side and a place in the competition’s group stages are one of 10 teams, with the Hammers due to take on a winner from one of five third qualifying round ties, as confirmed by the club on Monday afternoon.

Taking place over two legs on August 18 and 25, the Hammers will face the winners of either AIK (Sweden) vs Shkendija (North Macedonia), Riga (Latvia) vs Gil Vicente (Portugal), Wolfsberger (Austria) vs Gzira United (Malta), Paide Linnameeskond (Estonia) vs Anderlecht (Belgium) or Viborg (Denmark) vs B36 Torshavn (Faroe Islands).

All 10 sides come from different countries, meaning there is currently a 10 per cent chance that Moyes’ men will end up in Sweden, North Macedonia, Lativa, Portugal, Austria, Malta, Estonia, Belgium, Denmark or the Faroe Islands this month, with both ties coming either side of a home game against Brighton and Hove Albion at the Amex Stadium.

Here is a look at the best and worst case scenarios for the Hammers in the draw on Tuesday, taking place in Nyon, Switzerland.

Best possible draw

From both a travel and a club ranking perspective, the best possible draw for the Hammers would be to play against the winners of Viborg and B36 Torshavn. Viborg are the favourites for that game, entering with higher club coefficient ranking than Torshavn, as well as entering the competition at the second qualifying round stage compared to Torshavn, who entered it at the first.

Each tie has a better and worse ranked side in it, but of the 10 possible opponents, Viborg have the sixth highest coefficient and Torshavn’s is eighth, suggesting either way, West Ham would get a more favourable opponent.

From a flying perspective, it is a short flight of under two hours to get to Viborg’s nearest airport at Billund. However, while geographically Torshavn is nearer, from a commuting perspective for fans, the only direct flights from the United Kingdom is via Edinburgh, Scotland, meaning you would have to change at either Aalborg or Copenhagen in Denmark to get there from England.

Worst possible draw

From an opposition perspective, the worst possible outcome would be facing the winners of either Paide Linnameeskond vs Anderlecht or Riga (Latvia) vs Gil Vicente (Portugal). Anderlecht are the highest ranked potential opponent that West Ham could face with a club ranking of 11,500, just over half of West Ham’s 21,328. They are strong favourites against Paide, with the Estonian outfit having a ranking of just 2,000.

It is fair to assume that Anderlecht are more than likely to win that, but if they did not, a meeting with Paide would on paper, be a much more favourable tie, with Paide the lowest ranked potential opponents, with a direct flight time from London of just over two and a half hours.

Gil Vicente and Riga’s tie sees the two sides with a combined coefficient ranking of 18,676, the highest combined match-up that the Hammers could be drawn against. Portuguese side Gil Vicente enter the competition at the third qualifying round, while Riga have had to beat Derry City and Ruzemberok to get this far.

A flight to Riga would see West Ham total between five and six hours on a plane there and back, a similar distance to Paide, although Riga’s coefficient is higher than five of the other nine teams West Ham could be drawn against.

Austrian side Wolfsberger are the second toughest opponent the Hammers could face in terms of coefficient ratings and a trip there is likely to be a commute from the nearest airport, with Ljubljana in Slovenia having the nearest airport to Wolfsberg.

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