National League teams in Europe

[Neil]

Bohemians face FC Levadia Maardu of Estonia in the first qualifying round of the Champions' League .

The draw for the Champions' League was made this morning in Geneva. The first leg of the Bohs game will take place at Dalymount Park and it will be held on the 11th of August, while the return leg will take place a week later in Estonia.

Should Bohs progress, they will face Halmstads BK of Sweden in the second qualifying round.

In the UEFA Cup , Longford Town have been drawn against Bulgarian outfit FC Lovech. Town will host their visitors at Flancare Park on August 9th, with the second leg a fortnight later.

Shelbourne will travel to Denmark on the 9th of August to take on Brøndby of Denmark, and they will be in action again at Tolka Park 14 days later.

In general, the results have been fairly reasonable from a National League perspective. Bohs could have been drawn against a much easier team, but they will still be confident of beating Maardu.

Shelbourne have the Scandinavian experience from last year and they will not be scared of Brøndby, while Longford Town could well surprise the Bulgarians yet. It is all to look forward to.

[pete]

I think Bohs got one of the better unseeded teams but to counter this got one of the lowest ranked teams in the 2nd round so anythings possible. Getting to qualifying round 2 is a must really though! Also the fans potentially have to accessible countries to visit.

Again Longford got one of the lowest ranked seeded teams but probably won't be looking forward to visiting Bulgaria. Lovech don't seem to be one of the strongest Bulgarian teams so with a refurbished full Flancare seem to have a chance of winning the 1st home leg. Fans can probably get a week package holiday for the away match too. get a win in the home leg & Longford will do the league proud.

$hel$ definitely got the hardest draw but if the tie is still alive for the home leg will get a good few neutrals to tolka to boost their coffers for the retun leg. Brondby should be very accessible for th fans to get to as well.

[JC_GUFC]

Just remember UCD played against Velbazhd (who finished above Lovech this season) in the Intertoto Cup. 3-3 at home and 0-0 away - OK it was only the Intertoto but the Bulgarians were definitely not much better than UCD and Longford are a better team than the students!

CU
JC