Just one more hurdle stands between 20 teams and a place in the group stage of the 2014/15 UEFA Champions League as the play-offs take place between August 19-27 and both ITV and Sky Sports will be screening live coverage.
Barely days into the new season, Europe’s premier club football competition returns to our screens as some of most familiar sides on the continent aim to book their place in the lucrative group phase, with Arsenal and Celtic hoping to join their fellow British compatriots Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea when the tournament-proper kicks off in mid-September.
Arsenal will look to book their place in the opening stage of the competition for the 17th consecutive season, with the first leg of their tie against Turkish side Besiktas live on ITV (August 19), while the second will be shown on Sky Sports 5 (August 27).
The Gunners earned their spot by virtue of a fourth-placed finish in the Premier League last season, but missed out on automatic passage into the competition proper by just three points.
They competed in the play-off round last season, too, when Arsene Wenger’s men were drawn against Turkish outfit Fenerbache and they made light work of the tie.
Goals from Kieran Gibbs, Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud saw them all but wrap up the tie in the first leg in Turkey before a comfortable 2-0 victory in north London.
They will be expected to qualify once again as a seeded team, alongside 2004 winners Porto, Bayer Leverkusen and Napoli, and Wenger will hope to protect his proud record of qualifying for the group stages for the past 16 seasons, with the arrival of Chile’s Alexis Sanchez adding to his impressive squad.
Celtic have endured a bumpy and rather controversial route to reach the play-offs this time around and will look to book their place in the group stage by beating NK Maribor of Slovenia, the first leg of which will be live on Sky Sports 5 (August 20), while the second will be shown on ITV4 and on STV in Scotland (August 26).
The Scottish champions had a reprieve in the last qualifying round when Legia Warsaw were thrown out for fielding an ineligible player and will hope to capitalise fully and book their place in group phase.
They were then drawn to face the Slovenian champions in the play-off round, with Legia consigned to a Europa League tie with Aktobe of Kazakhstan, though the Polish side have taken their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the slim hope of still making it into the Europe’s elite competition.
Some of Europe’s top teams, including Bayer Leverkusen, Napoli and Porto, still need to book their place in the group stage of most prestigious club tournament in the world and every pass, cross, strike, tackle and goal from this season’s UEFA Champions League will be shown across ITV and Sky Sports.
Both broadcasters, who have shared coverage of the competition since 2003, get set for their final season covering live matches from Europe’s premier club competition before the rights pass over to BT Sport from 2015/16.
ITV will continue to screen its chosen first pick of Tuesday night matches throughout the competition, from the play-offs and group stages to next May’s final to be held at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.
Adrian Chiles will continue to host ITV’s live match coverage where he will be joined by regular pundit Lee Dixon and new signing Paul Scholes, with match commentary led by Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend.
Matt Smith will present highlights of the Tuesday night games in UEFA Champions League Extra Time on ITV after the News at Ten during each matchday.
Free-to-view highlights of Wednesday matches will be available online via the ITV Football website from Fridays, while ITV′s live match coverage, as well additional video clips, interviews and analysis, is available to watch for free via ITV Player.
Sky Sports will again screen a total 129 games throughout the competition, including 15 of the 16 fixtures from each matchday of the group stage, ties from every round of the knockout phase and the final in Berlin in May.
Jeff Stelling leads Sky’s live coverage on each matchday and will be joined by a variety of guests throughout the season, including Ruud Gullit, Graeme Souness, Jamie Redknapp and new Sky signing Jamie Carragher.
New for this season, all Sky televised Champions League games on Tuesday and Wednesday will be broadcast on Sky Sports 5, as well as online via Sky Go.
Additional live games can be found via the red button on Sky’s unique interactive service, where fans can watch a host of other teams in action from around the continent on the same night.
Keep up to date with all the latest UEFA Champions League reports, goal flashes and results by following ITV Football on Twitter – @itvfootball – and Sky Sports dedicated feed – @SkySportsCL.
Details of when and where to watch all the 2014/15 UEFA Champions League Play-off matches across the two weeks can be found below.
.
1st LEGS
Tuesday 19th August BESIKTAS v ARSENAL Kick-off: 19:45 LIVE: 7.30pm-10.00pm ITV NAPOLI v ATHLETIC BILBAO Kick-off: 19:45 LIVE: 7.00pm-9.55pm Sky Sports 5
2nd LEGS
Tuesday 26th August ZENIT ST PETERSBURG v STANDARD LIEGE Kick-off: 17:00 LIVE: 4.55pm-7.00pm Sky Sports 5 CELTIC v NK MARIBOR Kick-off: 19:45 LIVE: 7.30pm-10.00pm ITV4 / STV PORTO v LILLE Kick-off: 19:45 LIVE: 7.30pm-10.00pm Sky Sports 5.
.
