Andy Morrison insists Connah’s Quay Nomads can do what they do best in Europe tonight – find a way to win against the odds.
The Welsh Premier League club host Partizan Belgrade in the first leg of their second qualifying round of the Europa League at home this evening – a fixture most neutrals would not give them a prayer of winning.
But then no-one believed the Nomads could overturn a one-goal deficit at Kilmarnock – the third best team in Scotland – a week ago in the previous round before they did exactly that by winning 3-2 on aggregate.
“We find a way to win games against teams whose infrastructure is way ahead of us,” says Morrison, who masterminded the Killie killing.
“Partizan were not expecting to come here. They had already booked their hotels for Kilmarnock, in the same way as Kilmarnock’s fans had booked their travel for Serbia.
“But I have watched Partizan and I have told my staff ‘we can beat these’.”
Partizan drew 0-0 with Tottenham five years ago and are familiar travellers along the highways of European football.
Domestic champions no less than 27 times, they reached the 1966 European Cup final and although they can no longer keep pace with the wealthy giants of the continent, they have levels of experience the Nomads cannot match.
But the incentives for the home side are huge. Not only have they banked over £600,000 already, but that figure will rise to almost £1m if they somehow manage to beat their opponents over two legs.
“Tactically, we dominated the game at Kilmarnock,” adds Morrison. “I’m not going to talk about figures, but without a shadow of a doubt Kilmarnock’s budget would have been 20 times what ours is. What we did was quite remarkable.”
Connahs Quay have, at least, reached this stage once before, back in 2016, when they faced another Serbian side, Vojvodina.
“When we arrived at our dressing room, there were eight 6ft 3in guards with guns standing outside, just staring the lads down as we walked in,” says Morrison.
“Our lads just laughed at them – we’ve got tough boys from Manchester, Liverpool, they don’t give a hoot.
“It will not faze us in Belgrade. Heaven help them if Partizan try to intimidate us; the lads will just stick their chests out.”
First, though, the Nomads have to puff out their chests in Rhyl at their Belle Vue home, where any kind of result what keeps their prospects of progress still alive for the trip to Serbia will be a major accomplishment.
