Shamrock Rovers take on Bulgarian Champions Ludogorets in the Bulgarian city of Razgrad tonight with the team having taken what is more often the fan’s route of a day to get there including combinations of flights and long-haul road travel.
They have arrived though and the game will be broadcast live this evening on RTÉ2 with kick-off at 6-45 PM.
The road map we are interested in though is what happens to the clubs European ambitions depending on the result over the two legs of this second qualifying round for the UEFA Champions League.
Winning against the ten-in-a-row Bulgarian Champions will be challenging but if they do succeed, they will be into the third Qualifying round against the winners of Croatian Champions Dinamo Zagreb and North Macedonia’s Shkupi.
Linfield and Glasgow Rangers are still in the hunt as well at this stage and Rovers or either of them win though from this point they will be into a straight play-off for a place in the group stage of the competition.
Potential opponents include Benfica, PSV Eindhoven, Malmo, Olympiacos, Dynamo Kyiv, FC Copenhagen and Trabzonspor but nobody ever said it would be easy.
A loss for Rovers or Linfield over the next two legs would put them into the third qualifying round for the UEFA Europa League where they would play the losers of Zagreb against Shkupi. Victory there would set up a playoff for a place in the Europa League group stages where Gent, Austria Wien and Heart of Midlothian are among those waiting as possible opponents.
And even defeat there would still provide qualification for the Europa Conference League.
Everything will be decided by August 24th so it promises to be a rollercoaster of the next six weeks for the team and manager Stephen Bradley.
How far they go will determine the financial riches they might expect. Qualification for the Group Stage of the Champions League could generate a windfall of around €15 million while even the Conference League would still generate a minimum without a single point of around €3 million.
Sport for Business Partners
