I know what you are thinking “hang on, didn’t the Champions League Final only take place at the beginning of June?” Yes that’s right Real Madrid beat Juventus in Cardiff on the 3rd of June, just 24 days later the 2017/18 edition begins in earnest with the First Qualifying Round.
10 teams have the misfortune of starting their season this early and four of the five fixtures take place this evening. History will be made when Kosovo enter a representative for the first time as Trepça’89 take on Víkingur Gøta of the Faroe Islands.
Perennial qualifiers for this stage of the tournament are The New Saints of Wales, this year it is no different as they go up against Gibraltar based opposition. Usually it would be Lincoln Red Imps who would be representing the Rock but last season they were knocked off their perch by FC Europa.
For The New Saints it will be a new era for them as Carl Darlington takes charge of the club in his first competitive fixture since Craig Harrison departed for National League outfit Hartlepool after their relegation out of League 2 on the final day of last season.
Linfield play tomorrow night and they will not want to overlook the opposition in front of them especially with the mouthwatering prospect of playing Celtic in the Second Qualifying Round. They have been paired up with San Marino opposition in the form of La Florita. They should make light work of that to set up a very interesting tie with Brendan Rodgers’ men in a couple of weeks time.
The other two fixtures tonight see Hibernians of Malta take on FCI Tallinn of Estonia while Alashkert of Armenia play host to Andorran Champions FC Santa Coloma. There is hardly time to draw breath as for these 10 teams they are straight back into the action and I am not going to lie, I’m pretty excited about it. Full rundown of the results later in the week.