Rangers secure Euro seedings boost after Roma's trophy success

Roma’s victory in the inaugural Europa Conference League final on Wednesday night has assured Rangers of top seeded status if they play in the Europa League group stage next season.

The primary target for Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s squad will be a place in the group stage of the Champions League in which they will start their campaign in the third qualifying round.

But if Rangers are eliminated at any phase of the Champions League qualifiers – where their possible opponents include Monaco, Dinamo Kiev and PSV Eindhoven – they will go directly into the group stage of the Europa League.

Thanks to their vastly improved co-efficient ranking achieved over the past four seasons in the tournament, culminating in their epic run to this year’s final where they lost out in a penalty shoot-out to Eintracht Frankfurt in Seville, the Ibrox club would be in Pot 1 for the draw which is scheduled for August 26.

Roma will be the top ranked club in the Europa League group stage after booking their place by beating Feyenoord 1-0 in the Conference League final in Tirana. The other four clubs already confirmed in Pot 1 are the English pair of Manchester United and Arsenal, Italian giants Lazio and Rangers’ old foes Braga of Portugal.

Rangers are now one of the three highest-ranked clubs who could potentially drop into the Europa League from the Champions League qualifiers, along with Benfica and Dinamo Zagreb, which means they would avoid facing any of the other top seeds in the group stage.