The New Saints head to Budapest to face Hungarian giants

Saints played out a 1-1 draw with FK Decic in Montenegro last Tuesday as they sealed an impressive 4-1 aggregate victory.

They are now preparing to face Ferencvaros, champions of Hungary for the last six seasons, in Budapest this evening.

The return leg will take place in Oswestry next Tuesday, July 30.

Looking ahead to tonight’s game, TNS head coach Craig Harrison said: “It’s huge, it’s brilliant. It’s fantastic and it’s a bit of a reward, isn’t it, for the hard work that’s been put in up to now.

“Obviously, we know it’s going to be a really tough game, away first. They’re a very good team.

“I think historically the people that are our age or older will understand that Hungary were a bit of a power back in the day with some fantastic players and a fantastic national team, and some representing Hungary in the European cups, so they’ve got a huge history of European football.

“We’ll be looking forward to going out there and testing ourselves against the best.”

The home stadium of Ferencvaros – who drew 2-2 with West Ham United in a friendly in Austria last week – has a capacity of 23,700, with the club’s squad including many international players.

Having finished runners-up to Italian side Fiorentina in their Europa Conference League group last season, Ferencvaros then lost in the knockout round play-offs to Olympiacos from Greece, the eventual winners.

While the focus of Saints is firmly on the Champions League, they also played their final pre-season friendly last weekend, drawing 1-1 with Macclesfield at Park Hall.

Harrison took the opportunity to give game time to a number of players that did not start either of the two Champions League ties against FK Decic.

He added: “The last minutes everyone got, good minutes, 45 minutes or more, was Cliftonville away (earlier in pre-season), so it’s a great opportunity to get some good minutes in the lads that have been coming on.

“There’s been five lads that have come on for 20 minutes in both European games, but we needed more minutes in everybody else, so it was a great opportunity against a good team.”

Saints have played Hungarian opposition in Europe before.

They faced Videoton in the Champions League in the 2015-16 season, losing narrowly 2-1 on aggregate.

n The winners of the tie have been drawn against Andorran champions UE Santa Coloma or Danish champions FC Midtjylland in the third qualifying round.

The losers of the tie will drop into the Europa League at the third qualifying round stage, where they would play the losers of the Champions League second qualifying round tie between Cypriot league winners APOEL or Moldovan champions FC Petrocub.

One more win in European qualifying would guarantee TNS at least Europa Conference League group stage football.