Cork City will face Apollon Limassol of Cyprus in the first qualifying round of the Champions League. The winner will then go on to play Red Star Belgrade (aka FK Crvena Zvezda). All the qualifying round fixtures are here.
I have never heard of Apollon Limassol but Heres where Wikipedia comes in handy:
In 2006 Apollon won the Cyprus First Division championship title, while being the only undefeated team in Europe. Apollon hasn’t had a defeat for the last 30 league games (since 12 March 2005 – today).
While the league of Cyprus might not be the highest standard, that is a very impressive statistic, and this looks like a very difficult fixture. A number of them play for Cypriot national team, and they’ve also got three Iraqis who probably train with a concrete football, and a bunch of Eastern Europeans including at least one former Polish national who played in World Cup 2002.
Cork City are top of the league again after beating Drogheda United tonight, but do not look as strong as last season. It would be too much to ask for a repeat of last year’s performances against FK Ekranas and in particular the heroic win over Djurgårdens IF. I’m looking forward to this, the match will take place on the 11th or 12th of July.
Derry City face familiar opposition in the UEFA Cup – former winners IFK Göteborg. Cork City played them in the UEFA qualifiers in 1999 – Göteborg won a flattering 3-0 in Denmark, while City won 1-0 in Turners Cross. Drogheda United will face the Finnish team HJK Helsinki.
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