Aberdeen vs Burnley. Europa League Qualifying Second Round.
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Thursday 26 July 2018 19:52, UK
Burnley start their first European campaign in 51 years on Thursday night with an intriguing Europa League qualifier clash away to Aberdeen.
The British sides will play over two legs in the second round qualifying game - with the return leg at Turf Moor on August 2 - and the winner will face Istanbul Basaksehir in the next round.
Burnley's preparations for the first leg were disrupted as their flight from Manchester was delayed and was not due to arrive in Aberdeen until late on Wednesday.
But that is unlikely to dampen the enthusiasm around the tie, with Burnley defender James Tarkowski looking forward to playing in European competition for the first time.
"It's another tick on your list of everything you want to achieve in football," he said.
"I made it to the Premier League, which is nice, got a little bit of international football and then to say you've played European football in the Europa League is another achievement, so hopefully I get the chance on Thursday.
"The possibility of Europe was mentioned quite a lot at the start but it's nice for it now to finally be the next game, rather than the build-up to it, and we can look forward to getting up there, getting into that first game and seeing how it goes.
"We are only going to Scotland, so we are going to face a lot of British lads. But I still think the whole feel of it will be exciting for the fans and for ourselves. The lads are really looking forward to it and going to experience a different style of football."
Despite facing Premier League opposition, Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes does not believe there is much to separate the two sides.
"There's not a huge gulf between the clubs," he said. "There's a huge gulf between the leagues and because there's a gulf between the leagues, the way Burnley operate is a completely different level with all the finances and the rest of it.
"In terms of the size of clubs, we're a very proud club ourselves with traditions. We back ourselves, we've got brilliant support here so there's no inferiority complex from us as a club."
Burnley are yet to make any summer signings so will look very familiar to the side that secured a seventh-place finish in the Premier League last term.
New Aberdeen signings Tommie Hoban and Tomas Cerny will be available after being registered in time, while Scott Wright has recovered from a knock.
However, Mark Reynolds and Frank Ross will not feature while Adam Rooney has moved away from the club to join Salford City.