Will Scottish teams avoid European coefficient abyss?

Hibs will head to Denmark as underdogs given their relative recent European results.

The Leith side have failed in six attempts to progress through the qualifiers in the last 15 years.

Hosts Midtjylland, meanwhile, navigated two rounds before losing to Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League play-offs last season – then finished 20th in Europa League, qualifying for the play-off round, where they lost to Real Sociedad.

That explains why the Danes are ranked 71st in Europe – 166 places above Hibs.

Having lost 7-3 on aggregate to Rangers in Europa League qualifying in 2019, their improvement was such that they knocked Celtic out of the Champions League qualifying, 3-2 on aggregate, two years later.

Thomas Thomasberg is in his second spell as head coach and has gathered together a young squad with international experience from around the world.

Up front he has Poland’s Adam Buksa, South Korea’s Cho Gue-sung and Guinea-Bissau’s Franculino Dju, who is reportedly of interest to several Premier League clubs.

Zambia’s Edward Chilufya is joined in midfield by Denil Castillo, who has just made his Ecuador debut, while another 21-year-old, winger Dario Osorio, plays for Chile and centre-back Lee Han-beom recently debuted for South Korea.

Although Kevin Mbabu did not make it even to Rangers’ bench on loan from Newcastle United in 2015, the 30-year-old right-back has since played for Young Boys, Wolfsburg and Fulham while earning 25 caps for Switzerland.

Midtjylland are captained by former Brentford centre-back Mads Bech Sorensen, while veteran goalkeeper Jonas Lossl also played for the Premier League club, as well as Huddersfield Town in the English top flight.

If David Gray’s side can upset the odds, their next opponents, Fredrikstad of Norway, have limited European pedigree and currently sit eighth in the Eliteserien.

Drop to the Conference League and Hibs will face one of two sides who finished runners-up in their domestic league – Oleksandriya of Ukraine or Partizan Belgrade of Serbia.