BK Hacken v TNS: Saints boss Craig Harrison has Swedish champions well scouted

The first leg takes place in Gothenburg, with the return at Park Hall in Oswestry next Tuesday evening.

Craig Harrison, the club’s head coach, travelled to Sweden ahead of his team to watch Hacken win 2-1 against AIK in Stockholm on Saturday, a useful exercise in preparing for what he acknowledges will be a tough tie.

“It’s not often you get the opportunity because of logistics, etc...” he reflected. “We had our last pre-season game against Macclesfield on Saturday and Chris Seargeant took the team and the staff supported him, so it was useful.

“You look at styles of play, you can look at formations, but then you get a feel for the tempo of the game when you’re actually there, the speed the game’s played at, and the intensity.” Having won the Swedish title for the first time last season, Hacken are currently third in the league, with IF Elfsborg and Malmo above them.

Hacken have won 10, drawn two and lost three of their 15 league games so far this season.

Harrison said: “They’ve got a lot of energy, they’ve got a lot of attacking prowess, so it’s going to be a very, very tough game.

“Anyone over a season that finishes in front of the likes of Malmo are going to be a real, real tough opposition to play against.”

As for his own side’s preparations for the Champions League – Saints completed a busy pre-season programme of matches with a 1-0 win at Macclesfield last weekend – Harrison has been pleased with the response of his players.

“Purposely, I’ve asked a lot of the players and staff over pre-season,” he added. “I think it’s important that we stretch ourselves, not just for the European competition, but building for the season coming up. It’s something that I specifically wanted. I wanted to stretch everyone physically and mentally and almost try to build our robustness, which to be honest it’s worked.

“We’ve had one injury, and that was an impact injury, so we’ve had no muscle injuries whatsoever, which is brilliant, and credit to the medical staff and the fitness staff. They’ve done a great job on that as well.

“The players have rolled their sleeves up. There’s been times when it must have been hard physically. For instance, going to Ireland, we played three games in three days.

“Some of the travelling we’ve done – we travelled up to Scotland one day, the next day we travelled down to Cardiff. It was all to try and build up some togetherness in mental, physical and robustness.”

Saints, who won the JD Cymru Premier title for the 15th time last season, have met Swedish opposition in Europe before.

They lost on aggregate to both Osters IF in 2004-05 and Helsingborgs IF in 2012-13.