Man United to face Club Brugge in Champions League playoffs
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NYON, Switzerland --
Manchester United must beat Club Brugge in a playoff to advance to the Champions League group stage after a one-year absence.
Two-time finalist Valencia was paired with Monaco, a quarterfinalist last season, in the playoff round draw on Friday.
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Lazio will face Bayer Leverkusen, and Sporting Lisbon was paired with CSKA Moscow.
Rapid Vienna, the lowest-ranked team among the non-champions in the draw, is at home first against Shakhtar Donetsk.
Among 10 pairings drawn, it was Celtic vs. Malmo, Basel vs. Maccabi Tel-Aviv, and debutant Astana vs. APOEL.
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The draw was completed with Skenderbeu vs. Dinamo Zagreb, and BATE Borisov vs. Partizan.
First-leg matches are played on Aug. 18-19, and return matches on Aug. 25-26.
Ten winners advance to the 32-team group-stage draw on Aug. 27 in Monaco.
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United returns to Europe's top club competition after a one-year absence, which was its first since 1995-96.
The reward for advancing is a 12 million euros ($13.1 million) prize money bonus from UEFA for being in the group stage, plus 2 million euros for winning the playoff.
UEFA has increased Champions League prize money by 33 percent this season, and will share more than 1.2 billion euros among the 32 group-stage clubs.
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Playoff losers this month are compensated with 3 million euros and a place in the Europa League groups, which guarantees a 2.4 million euros bonus.