THE road to Tirana begins tomorrow with the draw for the first qualifying round of the inaugural UEFA Conference League.
TNS and Newtown are joined by Bala Town in representing the JD Cymru Premier in the draw at 12.30pm tomorrow.
With the first qualifying round ties set to be played on July 8 and 15 the Welsh trio will learn their opponents with the clubs divided into seven groups of eight teams and one group of 10 teams using coefficient rankings.
Within each of the eight groups, the clubs are split into an equal number of seeded and unseeded sides.
Newtown are in group eight and could face either NSI Runavík of the Faroe Isles, Latvian side Liepaja, Slovakians Spartak Trnava, Irish side Dundalk or Icelanders Bredablik.
NSI Runavik
NSÍ Runavík is based on the island of Eysturoy and founded in 1957.
In 2007, the club won the Faroe Islands Premier League for the first time.
Their stadium, Vio Lokin has a capacity of 2,000 and not approved by UEFA for international play, so Runavík play their UEFA matches in Torshavn or Toftir.
The Faroes side thrashed Barry Town United 5-1 in last season's Europa League.
Liepaja
Daugava Stadium. Picture by Papuass.
FK Liepāja/Mogo was founded in 2014 as a phoenix club of FK Liepājas Metalurgs which was dissolved due to the bankruptcy of its owner company and the sole sponsor metallurgical plant A/S Liepajas Metalurgs.
FK Liepaja were Virsliga champions in 2015 and cup winners in 2020 and have twice progressed to second qualifying round of the Europa League.
The club play at the 4,022 capacity Daugava Stadium.
Spartak Trnava
City Arena Trnava. Picture by Vincenzo.togni.
FC Spartak Trnava is one of the most successful clubs in the country, having won the Czechoslovak First League five times and the Czechoslovak Cup on four occasions, and reaching the semi-final of the European Cup once and the quarter-final twice.
More recently, the club won the Slovak league title in 2018 and Slovak cup in 2019.
The 19,200 capacity Anton Malatinsky Stadium is located in the centre of Trnava, directly behind the walls of the old town. Formerly known simply as Spartak stadium, it was renamed in 1998 in honour of the club's most successful manager.
Dundalk
Dundalk are the second most successful club in the League of Ireland's history with 14 league titles and 12 FAI Cups, and the most successful in the Premier Division era.
Dundalk made their European debut in the 1963–64 European Cup as champions and became the first Irish side to win an away match in Europe that season.
Their best performance in the European Cup came when they reached the last 16 in 1979–80.
They have qualified twice for the Europa League group stage and became the first team from Ireland to both win points and win a match at that level of European competition in 2016–17.
The 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League will be their 25th European campaign.
The club play at the 3,100 capacity Oriel Park.
Bredablik
Bredablik's Kópavogsvöllur Stadium. Picture by Jóhann Heiðar Árnason.
Bredablik UBK multi-sport club of Kopavogur, just south of Reykjavik finished second in 2018.
With one of the largest youth facilities in Iceland, Breidablik is almost entirely built on home-grown talent.
In the early 2000s, Iceland national football team internationals who came through the Breidablik youth ranks included Jóhann Berg Gudmundsson, Gudmundur Kristjansson, Alfred Finnbogason and Gylfi Sigurdsson.
The club play at t Kopavogsvollur Stadium which holds 3,009 spectators.
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