We are now guaranteed a meaningful and competitive preparation ahead of the league start on 14 August and Craig Brown will able to offer the chance of European football to entice his signing targets to come to Fir Park.
Qualification is a great achievement for a team that was in chaos a year ago. We had no manager and only a skeleton squad. Brown and Knox revived our season following their appointment at the turn of the year but Jim Gannon is also entitled to take some pride at the team’s success. His smart signings built what was to become a decent team and our impressive start under his guidance delivered a platform for later success.
Motherwell line up with Steau Bucharest
We took part in the inaugural Europa League and had six games with lots of goals. Llanelli, Flamurtari from Albania and the well known Steaua Bucharest from Romania entertained us and the aggregate score was 12-9 in our favour!
We’ll be in the draw for the second qualifying round on Monday 21 June and the games will take place on the Thursdays evenings of July 15 and 22. A list of participants for these early stages is available on Wikipedia and there are some well known names among them. There are 54 teams in the first round and they are spread all over Europe, from Iceland to Malta! There will 80 teams in our round including Elfborg from Sweden and Rapid Vienna.
The carrot for progress to the next stage is the chance of meeting, among others, Liverpool, Stuttgart or Juventus. The thought of welcoming any of those three to Fir Park will warm the heart of the Motherwell treasurer and excite the fans.
Match report Motherwell 8 Flamurtari 1