Georgian outfit FC Iberia 1999 welcome Swedish giants Malmo to Mikheil Meskhi Stadium on Tuesday for the opening leg of their Champions League first qualifying round, in what will be the maiden meeting between the sides.

The hosts booked their place in the qualifiers by winning the 2024 Erovnuli Liga, while the Scandinavian visitors also clinched domestic honours to earn a ticket to this stage of the competition.

Iberia appear to have cracked the code for sustained success on the domestic front, as they are currently enjoying an outstanding title defence in their top-flight campaign.

Champions for the first time in 2018, the Red Eagles had to wait until the previous season to reclaim the crown but have followed that triumph with a seamless run this year.

Levan Korgalidze’s men sit atop the league standings at the halfway point of the 2025 campaign, having gone unbeaten in their opening 18 matches, with 13 wins and five draws collecting a total of 44 points.

Despite that impressive run, recent outings have offered a rare blip, as Iberia suffered their first defeats of the year – a 3-1 semi-final loss to Dila Gori in the Georgian Super Cup followed by a penalty shootout defeat to Torpedo Kutaisi in the third-place playoff, but they will be looking to quickly put these setbacks behind them ahead of Tuesday’s clash.

Encouragement can be drawn from their formidable record on their own turf, with the Tbilisi club winning eight of their last nine competitive matches at Mikheil Meskhi, although that success has yet to translate into the Champions League preliminaries.

Iberia’s only previous involvement in the UCL came in the 2019–20 season, where they lost both home matches in the qualifiers – a 3-1 defeat to Sheriff Tiraspol at this stage and a 2-0 loss to Dinamo Zagreb in the next round despite having progressed on aggregate against the Moldovan outfit.

Malmo arrive with far greater pedigree in this competition and are targeting a return to the group stage for the first time since their 2021–22 campaign.

The Swedish side are hoping to avoid a repeat of their last appearance in the qualifiers when they fell to a 2-0 away defeat to Sparta Prague and bowed out with a 4-0 aggregate loss, missing out on the 2024–25 tournament proper.

However, Henrik Rydstrom’s men enter this encounter without much wind in their sails, having picked up just one win from their last six outings across all competitions – a slump largely tied to a blunt edge in the final third.

The Blue Ones have managed only four goals across that run, drawing blanks in four matches including a goalless stalemate at GAIS last time out.

That result leaves Malmo in fifth place in the league and stretched their winless away streak to four matches (three draws), so Rydstrom will be desperate to find answers up front if they are to take control of this two-legged tie.

FC Iberia 1999 possible starting lineup:

Megrelishvili; Gelashvili, G. Tabatadze, Jgierenaya, Agyakwa; Kardava, Silagadze, I. Tabatadze, Mamageishvili, Dadiani; Sikharulidze

Malmo possible starting lineup:

Elborg; Buzanello, Ressler, Larsen, Karlsson; Bolin, Rosengren, Busuladzic, Hakshabanovic; Ali, Gudjohnsen