Mont guard

All entrants to the first qualifying round of next season’s UEFA Conference League have now been confirmed.

The last issue to be resolved hinged on last night’s Montenegrin Cup Final, in which Decic defeated Mornar 1-0 to claim the single remaining seeded berth, which would otherwise have gone to Andorran representatives Santa Coloma.

As a consequence, and as regular consultants of our dedicated European Guide will be aware, all 24 of Cliftonville’s potential opponents in the opening phase of the competition have been established:

Borac (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Dudelange (Luxembourg)
Decic (Montenegro)
Dila Gori (Georgia)
Flora (Estonia)
Floriana (Malta)
HJK (Finland)
Kauno Zalgiris (Lithuania)
KI (Faroe Islands)
Koper (Slovenia)
La Fiorita (San Marino)
Ordabasy (Kazakhstan)
Paide (Estonia)
Partizani (Albania)
Petrocub (Moldova)
Pyunik (Armenia)
Shamrock Rovers (Ireland)
St Joseph’s (Gibraltar)
St Patrick’s Athletic (Ireland)
Sutjeska (Montenegro)
Torpedo Zhodino (Belarus)
Urartu (Armenia)
Vllaznia (Albania)
Vikingur (Iceland)

Ahead of the draw on June 17, UEFA are expected to divide all 50 participating teams into geographically-linked pots of 10, each of which will contain five Seeded and Unseeded entrants, however the arbitrary nature of the process means there are no reliable indicators of which teams will and won’t be included in Cliftonville’s region.