ON Friday, the wait will finally be over for Neil Lennon.

The draw for the third qualifying round of the Champions League will take place, and his SPL champions will discover who will provide the opposition in their opening game of season 2012-13.

Celtic are seeded, and among those potentially lying in wait are Sheriff Tiraspol, Debrecen, Maribor, Ventspils, Slovan Liberec, Slask Wroclaw, Helsinki, Limassol, Ekranas and possibly most problematic, logistically, Zestafoni from Georgia.

The first leg of the tie will take place on July 31 or August 1 Lennon is more concerned about the timing rather than who his team will face.

Having lost to Braga, Utrecht and Sion in previous opening round qualifiers, the manager's apprehension is understandable. "If these qualifiers were in September, I wouldn't be losing any sleep at all," he said as he prepared his team to play Stuttgart Kickers today in the second game of their warm-up tour of Germany and Holland.

"But because they come so early – Braga, Utrecht, Sion – we haven't done as well as we should have, and we have to learn from those experiences.

"The players will have had a huge boost from the games against Udinese, Rennes and Atletico Madrid last season, but those were all in September, October, November, December, so the match fitness is going to be different from those games. That's why we have tried to balance the pre-season and get in as many quality games as we can."

Having opened on Tuesday with a goalless draw against Bundesliga side Augsburg, following today's match against Kickers the pace will pick up with matches against FC Aalen on Tuesday, then Ajax in Amsterdam on Saturday.

When the squad gets back to Glasgow, Norwich and Inter Milan will visit to complete the pre-season prep.

Lennon has put considerable thought into this programme, and is doing all he can to give his side the best possible chance to negotiate the qualifiers for a competition which carries more significance than ever with the SPL championship anticipated to be headed somewhere south of exhilarating and income streams drying up.

Lennon said: "We'll just see what the draw brings. We have an idea who we might face, and we've been doing a little work in the background on reports.

"I'm wary of these games. I know how important it is to the club. Our primary objective is to try to get through the two qualifiers and enhance the club in Europe and the players' careers."

That journey may begin with goalkeeper Fraser Forster as Lennon's only summer signing, which would mean the Celtic manager missing the target he set of augmenting his squad early and having them bedded in for the opening qualifying tie.

Acquiring a dominant central defender and a striker with an aerial threat remain his priorities, while Lennon is also pursuing Rosenborg midfielder Markus Henriksen and Ozaka winger Kim Bo-Kyung. However, it is apparent Celtic would like to sell before they commit to buying, with the manager mindful of the need to balance the books and aware of how sluggish the market has been as they try to offload Ki Sung-Yueng.

Lennon has already reduced the wage bill by releasing high-earning players, including Daniel Majstorovic, Glenn Loovens, Mark Wilson and Cha Du-Ri.

Finding potential signings with the right credentials and the right price tag is testing Celtic's scouting network to the limit, and Lennon now faces a race against time to get players in and ready to play before the first qualifier.

He said: "Ideally, we would look to have one out here just to bed in. But if I go with the squad I have, I'll be happy with that, especially if all our main players are fit."

Lennon admitted progressing to the Champions League is only the first of the targets he has set his side. He said: "There are three domestic trophies to go for, and we want to try to win them. Qualifying for the Champions League is the short-term target, but regaining the championship is the priority."