Seeds revealed for UEFA Cup draw
Italian club Lazio, England's Newcastle and Bundesliga side Stuttgart are among the top group of seeds for Tuesday's UEFA Cup group draw.
The inaugural UEFA Cup group stage was brought in to boost the profile of Europe's second tier club competition which had struggled to compete with the Champions League.
The 40 teams who qualified on Thursday have been divided into five seeding pools of eight with a team from each pool going into the eight groups of five when the draw is made in Switzerland.
Teams from the same country will be separated.
The top pool of seeds also includes former winners Parma, who beat Slovenia's Maribor 3-2 on aggregate but are bottom of Serie A, AEK Athens, Club Bruges, Rangers and Feyenoord.
Last year's semi-finalists Villarreal are in the second group of seeds which also includes Auxerre and Schalke, who demolished Latvia's Liepajas Metalurg 9-1 over two legs.
Each club play two matches at home and two away in the group stage.
The winners, runners-up and third-placed sides advance to the last 32 where they will be joined by the eight third-placed clubs from the Champions League group stage. The competition then becomes two-legged knockout again.
The final takes place on May 18 at the Jose Alvalade Stadium, home of Sporting Lisbon, who are in the second pot of seeds.
Pot 1 - Lazio, Parma, Feyenoord, Newcastle, AEK Athens, Stuttgart, Bruges, Rangers.
Pot 2 - Villarreal, Auxerre, Schalke, Sporting, Real Zaragoza, Besiktas, Benfica, Lille.
Pot 3 - Athletic Bilbao, Sevilla, Dinamo Zagreb, Basel, Sochaux, Middlesbrough, Utrecht, Graz AK.
Pot 4 - Partizan Belgrade, Steaua Bucharest, Hearts, Heerenveen, Alemannia Aachen, Amica Wronki, Panionios, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.
Pot 5 - Ferencvaros, Standard Liege, Egaleo, AZ Alkmaar, Zenit St. Petersburg, Beveren, Austria Vienna, Dinamo Tbilisi.
