Tottenham face trip to Romania or Macedonia in Europa League 3rd Qualification Round

Tottenham Hotspur’s Europa League campaign is already becoming arduous. One day after drawing away at Bulgarian side Lokomotiv Plovdiv in the Second Qualification Round, Spurs found out their potential opponents in the Third Qualification Round of the Europa League tournament.

It’s not great! Should they win in Plovdiv, Spurs face another long European trip, having been drawn away at the winner of Romanian club FC Botoşani and Macdeonian first division side KF Shkëndija.

I’m not going to even pretend I know anything about these clubs because I don’t, apart from that Botoşani finished fourth in the Romanian league table and Shkëndija was third in the Macedonian league. Not exactly fearsome opponents, but one should always be wary when traveling to a small European club on a Thursday night.

More concernedly, this shoehorns in another long travel into what is already a crowded schedule for Tottenham Hotspur. Here’s how the schedule shakes out.

• EPL — vs. Everton, 9/13
• Europa — @ Plovdiv, 9/17
• EPL — @ Southampton, 9/20
• Carabao Cup Third Round, 9/22
• Europa — @ Botosani/Shkëndija, 9/24
• EPL — vs. Newcastle, 9/26
• Carabao Cup Fourth Round, 9/29
• Europa — Play-off round (TBD), 10/1
• EPL — @ Manchester United, 10/3

Absolutely brutal. If Spurs make the Europa League group stages, few people will be able to say that they haven’t earned it. And it really just makes me angrier at Arsenal for winning the damn FA Cup.

Edit: Scheduled updated to include the Carabao Cup third and fourth round ties.