Passport Buddies

It’s that time of year again where European football qualifiers come thick and fast and Scottish teams hope to reach the group stages of whatever tournament they happen to be in.

Celtic don’t need to worry about any of this of course, the Scottish champions are already in the Champions League group stages (although this is the last season that’s going to be true for a while), and whilst Rangers and Hearts are both guaranteed some kind of group stage football they’ll be hoping it’s the competition they start in – the Champions League and Europa League respectively.

Although they don’t start for a couple of weeks yet, Rangers will have an eye on the Dynamo Kyiv v Partizan Belgrade tie given they’ll face the winner for that. Although with Kyiv being 6-2 up from the home leg, theres a good chance they’ll be the team Rangers have to face. Hearts won’t enter until the playoff round of the Europa League, so they’ve another couple of weeks before they’ll even know who they might face.

For now though, that means our focus is on Kilmarnock in the Europa League and St Mirren in the Conference League. We’ll start with Kilmarnock who have the slightly earlier kick off time of 7.30pm at Rugby Park on Thursday night where they’ll host Belgian side Cercle Brugge. The game is live on the BBC Scotland channel.

Kilmarnock fans won’t thank me for reminding everyone of this, but this is only their third season this century in European competition. Their last outing was in 2019 where they faced Connah’s Quay Nomads of Wales in the first qualifying round of the Europa League and despite leading 2-1 from the away leg they somehow conspired to lose the home leg 2-0 and had a quick exit from Europe.

This was Angelo Alessio’s debut at home as manager, having taken over from Steve Clarke. So all I’m saying is be careful what you wish for when Steve Clarke is replaced…

Kilmarnock’s other European run this century was slightly longer. Back in 2001, they saw off Glenavon of Northern Ireland 2-0 on aggregate before losing out 3-1 on aggregate to Viking of Norway in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup.

At least the Kilmarnock fans will need their passports next week, two of the last three ties have been UK based! Somehow doesn’t seem fair.

Kilmarnock have only faced Belgians in Europe twice before, and curiously both of those came in the same season – part of the glorious 1966/67 run to the Inter-Cities Fairs’ Cup semi final. Indeed, it was the first two parts!

Kilmarnock entered at the second round where they faced Antwerp and absolutely scudded them 7-2 in the second leg at home. Jackie McInally scored twice, as did Tommy McLean, as did Gerry Queen. Craig Watson was the only one to only score once that day. They then faced La Gantoise in the third round and took a 1-0 lead to Belgium from the first leg, the goal coming from Eric Murray. I’ll save the chat about the away games for next week!

Unfortunately there’s no footage of either of these.

Cercle Brugge are less experience in Europe. This is only their fourth season to qualify, and their first since 2010/11. They’ve only won one tie in their previous three European exploits, that being a 2-2 away goals victory at this same stage in 2010 over Turun Palloseura of Finland – which they couldn’t do today as away goals no longer matter! The three they’ve lost were to Anorthosis Famagusta of Cyprus in 2010, SK Brann of Norway in 1996 and Dynamo Dresden in 1985. So this will be their first visit to Scotland.

Cercle Brugge qualified for the second round of the Europa League through their league position. Although they finished fifth in the Belgian league in the regular 30 game season, they then moved up to fourth in the 10 game champions playoff.

They have a 16 team league where the teams play each other twice, then split into six, six and four to decide the title, the final European spot (after a playoff with a team from the champions split), and relegation. If you think the Scottish Premiership split is complicated, this is even more so and has two or even three more games! Don’t put it past the SPFL to look at this and think “ooh…”

As with Rangers, the draw for the next round was done on Monday and paired the winner of Kilmarnock’s tie with the winner of Molde FK of Norway or Silkeborg of Denmark. So that’s another tie to keep an eye on, especially as it kicks off at 6pm oor time, the first leg taking place in Norway.

And because this is the Europa League, there’s a parachute for the loser of the tie into the Conference League. Whoever loses this tie will face the winner of KuPS Kuopio of Finland or Tromso IL of Norway. Those two are already in the Conference League and kick off at 4pm today oor time in Finland.

Fifteen minutes after kick off at Rugby Park, we’ll see kick off in St Mirren’s first foray into European football for 37 years as they are in Iceland to take on Valur in the Conference League second qualifying round. This one isn’t being broadcast anywhere legally, so… you know…

The Scottish Cup victory in 1987 meant a Cup Winners’ Cup spot the following season and whilst the Buddies managed to beat Tromso of Norway 1-0 on aggregate in the first round they came unstuck against KV Mechelen in the second round.

Mind you, in both ties the away game was goalless, so if you want an away goal for St Mirren then you have to go back to the UEFA Cup campaign two years earlier. Whilst they may have lost 1-0 away to Slavia Prague of Czechoslovakia in the first round, they turned it around at home and advanced to have a 3-3 draw in the second round against Hammerby of Sweden courtesy of a Brian Gallacher hat trick.

St Mirren’s European history all comes from the 1980s. Their first campaign has their only away win to date, a 2-1 victory away to Elfsborg in the first round of the UEFA Cup in 1980/81. Doug Somner being the Buddies first ever goalscorer in Europe to level the game that night, with the sadly recently passed away Billy Abercromby getting the winner with 20 minutes to play.

The 2-0 defeat to Saint Etienne in the following round was enough to knock them out of the competition. The other away trip was a 2-0 defeat to Feyenoord in the 1983/84 UEFA Cup first round.

Unfortunately I’ve not had any luck finding footage of any of this! There is a mixture of home and away games in this video though. Spoilers for next week when I talk about the home legs though!

Unlike Kilmarnock’s opponents, Valur have a far more rich European history having represented Iceland as far back as 1966/67 in the Cup Winners’ Cup and have even faced Scottish opposition on two occasions.

In the 1975/76 Cup Winners’ Cup first round, they faced Celtic and managed to keep the score down at home in the first leg to a 2-0 defeat, Paul Wilson and Roddie MacDonald with the goals.

At the same stage of the same competition in 1993/94, Valur met Aberdeen. Again they hosted the first leg, this time slumping to a 3-0 defeat with goals coming from Duncan Shearer and two from Eoin Jess.

Indeed, as much as Valur have played in Europe in no fewer than 24 occasions previously, they’ve only actually managed to win four ties: Jeunesse D’Esch of Luxembourg in 1967, MyPa of Finland in 1993 (a qualifying round prior to facing Aberdeen), Ventspils of Latvia in 2017, and Santa Coloma of Moldova in 2018.

It’s now five in 25 though, as they beat Vllaznia of Albania in the first qualifying round last week. Although they drew 2-2 at home in the first leg, a 4-0 win away from home in the second leg saw them reach tonight’s tie. Here’s the home tie.

Of course, as this is the Conference League there’s no parachute as with Kilmarnock. If St Mirren want to be in Europe beyond this tie, they’ll have to win it. Awaiting them in the next round should they do that, as again the draw was done on Monday, is the winners Go Ahead Eagles of the Netherlands and SK Brann of Norway. The first leg of that tie kicks off at 5.30pm oor time in the Netherlands.

Good luck to both Kilmarnock and St Mirren tonight. Back next week with a look at the second legs!