Given our Anglocentric view of the footballing world, the pre-group stage UEFA Champions League qualifying playoffs have primarily been about Arsenal’s challenging tie against Udinese.  But there’s more going on–much much more, including some interesting 2nd leg matches today.

Here’s the full schedule of today’s and tomorrow’s fixtures, from UEFA’s site.  The matches we’ll keeping an eye on are two involving rather “big” clubs from two of the continent’s big leagues: Zürich vs Bayern München & Villarreal vs Odense BK.

Bayern won 2-0 last week against the Swiss club (founded, we just learned yesterday, by the same man who went on to found FC Barcelona).  So barring a lopsided upset today in Zürich they should advance to the group stage.  On the other hand, Danish OB (not to be confused with the true Korean beer) surprised the heavily favored Submarino Amarillo 1-0 at home in Odense (the 3rd largest city in Denmark, with a population of approx 167,000).

So Villareal will have to win at home, and by at least 2 goals. But we’ll be looking for that to happen, given their “imperious home form“at El Madrigal and high-scoring abilities (via strikers Giuseppe “Jersey-born” Rossi and Brazilian Nilmar, and midfielders Cani, Borja Valero, Bruno Soriano and team captain Marcos Senna–the latter three of whom have all earned caps with the Spanish national team–no mean feat given the current generation of Spanish midfielders: Xavi, Iniesta, David Silva, Cesc Fabregas, Xabi Alonso, Sergio Busquets).

The other three matches today are Malmö FF (Sweden) vs Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia), Genk (Belgium) vs Maccabi Haifa (Israel), Apoel Nikosia (Cyprus) vs Wisla Krakau (Poland).