"You've got to pinch yourself" - thousands expected for The New Saints v Panathinaikos
The New Saints step back on to the European stage when they face Greek giants Panathinaikos at Shrewsbury Town’s Croud Meadow on Thursday night (8pm), writes Stuart Dunn.
Craig Harrison, the Park Hall club’s head coach, describes the match as a fantastic opportunity and great challenge.
Saints go into their fifth league phase game in the Uefa Conference League just a point behind their opponents from Athens in the race to qualify for the knockout phase play-offs of the competition.
Panathinaikos are currently 24th in the standings - the final qualification spot - with TNS placed 29th from the 36 competing teams.
Thursday's big game is the penultimate league phase match for the JD Cymru Premier champions, with their final fixture at this stage taking them to Slovenia to play Celje next week.
Looking ahead to taking on Panathinaikos - European Cup finalists in 1971 when they lost to Ajax at Wembley - Harrison said: “It’s almost like you’ve got to pinch yourself because of how far we’ve come in such a short space of time.
“I remember sitting with Mike (TNS chairman Mike Harris) when I first came back to the football club, and Mike was saying he wanted to be at this stage in five years’ time, and that was two-and-a-half years ago, so we’re looking about building something and almost a five-year plan and we’ve done it in half the time.
“Then to actually get through and play Fiorentina and then have Panathinaikos versus TNS at home, two massive, iconic fixtures, one away, which was an unbelievable experience, and then obviously Panathinaikos at home is a huge one with the size of their football club and the size of their support.
“Looking at their team and everything, it’s a fantastic opportunity, it’s a great challenge.
"They’ve got an amazing team. I think one of our analysts was saying that they had over 800 full international caps in their squad and they’ve played 11,000 top-flight games between their squad, so that just shows the enormity and the quality of player we’re playing against.”
Harrison, whose team lost narrowly 1-0 against Swedish club Djurgarden in their latest European fixture last month, added: “It’s such a fantastic evening to look forward to and to play against. Looking back at the whole Conference League, where we’ve got to, to play Fiorentina away and then Panathinaikos at home, I believe there’s been over 5,000 tickets sold, so it’s going to be brilliant.”
