PARIS. Aug 7 The (season could ef-__ fr* lively be over

•’'* before it has even

Champions begun for some of ’ E C.U.E ,’the big names in European football this week, reports AFP.

For such the 'importance of making it into the lucrative European Champions League for last year's runners-up Valencia and the two Milan clubs, as well as the likes of Anderlecht. Glasgow Rangers and Leeds United, that failure would have disastrous consequences FERNANDO REDONDO

lor the club s finances.

• Not that any of the big guns will have an easy passage in the final qualifying round as they bid for one of the 16 remaining places on offer in the competition proper.

Perhaps the toughest task falls to Inter Milan, who travel to Helsingborgs in Sweden In the first leg on Wednesday.

Despite their summer recruitment campaign. Inter have yet to kick a ball In anger this season while the In-form Swedish champions are in the middle of their league season.

The unforgiving Inter fans demand success and the consid-

erable outlay on players like Spaniard Javier Farinos. one of the heroes of Valencia's cruise to last year's final. Turkish striker Hakan Sukur and Andrea Pirlo, will have been for nothing if they fall at the final hurdle.

The same. qan be said for’ their bitter rivals. AC Milan, who will be hoping that their new Argentine recruit Fernando Redondo can add a third Champions League medal to the two he won with Real Madrid.

But that is a long way in the future and first they have to overcome a two-leg battle with the formidable Dynamo Zagreb to even qualify.

Glasgow Rangers, whose stranglehold on the Scottish title has made the Premier League a one-horse race for all but one year in the past decade, will not relish their trip to Herfloge in Denmark, while Leeds need to build a reasonable cushion against Munich I860 for the return leg in Germany

Galatasaray. the rising stars of European football after their UEFA Cup win and Turkish title last year, should not find Swiss side St Gallen too much of an obstacle to their ambitions, while the draw is likely to •figure a number of great names from the past.

Among them should be Feyenoord, who ought to prove too strong for Austrian outfit Sturm Graz; Panathlnaikos of

Greece, provided their defence can hold out in the first leg away to Polonia in Warsaw and Valencia who should not find Tyrol Innsbruck too much of a threat.

But the pick of the crop of this week's , matches are,,Lbe those which’arc most difficult! to call - Anderlecht agalnt FC Porto and Dynamo Kiev versus Red Star Belgrade.