Milan will discover their Europa League league phase opponents on Friday, and they will do so from the safety of Pot 1.
The seeding is already confirmed, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, with the Rossoneri joined by Juventus among the top seeds. That placement is worth something concrete: it keeps Milan clear of the strongest opponents in the first draw slot and shapes the calibre of the sides they can be paired with across the league stage.
The full field is still taking form. Seventeen teams have locked in their places so far, with 19 more to be decided, made up of seven clubs dropping down from the Champions League play-offs and the 12 winners of the Europa League play-offs. The Champions League second legs are being played tonight and tomorrow, while the Europa League play-off return matches are all scheduled for Thursday.
Alongside the two Italian clubs, Pot 1 already includes Olympiacos, Bayer Leverkusen and AZ Alkmaar. Sitting on the line between the first and second pots, depending on which sides advance, are Celtic, Real Sociedad, Marseille and Union Saint-Gilloise.
Further down, Sparta Prague, Rennes, Sturm Graz, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Sunderland are hovering between the second and third pots. Celta Vigo, Hoffenheim, Hapoel Beer Sheva, NEC Nijmegen and Torreense fall between the third and fourth.
The names still to be settled come from two sources. The Champions League drop-outs will be decided by four ties: Celje or Slovan Bratislava (1-1 after the first leg), AEK Athens or Levski Sofia (0-0), Lyon or Fenerbahce (1-1), and Viking or Dinamo Zagreb (2-2).
The Europa League play-offs complete the field with 12 more, several of them looking settled after the first legs: Iberia or Jagiellonia (0-4), Ararat Armenia or Universitatea Craiova (1-1), Viktoria Plzen or Red Star Belgrade (0-3), RB Salzburg or Mjallby (1-0), Zalgiris Kaunas or Besiktas (0-3), Lillestrom or Egnatia (0-0), Omonia Nicosia or Sint-Truiden (0-1), Thun or Lech Poznan (0-7), CSKA Sofia or OFI Crete (0-3), Aarhus or Benfica (1-3), Anderlecht or Kairat Almaty (3-0), and Ferencvaros or Trabzonspor (1-0).
The precise pot for several of these contenders will only settle once the play-offs are done, which means the shape of Milan's possible opponents can still shift before Friday. From here, the draw itself decides the rest.