17 days later… The Champions League kicks off in Iceland
IF UEFA has its way, the Champions League will become a 365-day competition; the 2022-23 campaign lasted from June 21 2022 to June 10 2023 and 2023-24 begins on June 27, just 17 days after Manchester City beat Inter Milan in the last final in Istanbul. They’re almost there!
In all probability, most people will not notice that a mini preliminary competition is taking place in Iceland between June 27 and 30. There’s two semi-finals and a final in Kópavogur, a town just south of Reykjavik. Atlétic Club d’Escaldes of Andorra are playing Montenegro’s Budućnost Podgorica and San Marino’s Tre Penne will meet Breidablik of Iceland. The two winners will meet in a final on June 30 and the prize is a place in the first qualifying round and a two-legged tie with Shamrock Rovers and then of they are successful in that one, a clash with Danish champions FC Copenhagen. For these clubs, even dipping their toes in the Champions League money pool is worth it.
These clubs will be out of contention and either dreaming of next season or playing in one of the other UEFA competitions before anyone focuses on the Champions League in 2023-24. For the moment, however, they are in the spotlight. AC d’Escaldes were Andorran champions for the first time in 2022-23, beating off the challenge of Inter Club d’Escaldes by two points in the eight-team Andorran Primera Divisió, despite losing the final game of the season at home to their local rivals. AC d’Escaldes have only been in existence since 2002 and they also won the national cup in 2022.
D’Escaldes has a population of just 14,000 and is well known for its jazz festival. The peak July temperature is only 17.3 degrees centigrade, so it can be chilly. AC d’Escaldes, who are simply known as “L’Atletic” are facing Budućnost Podrogin, who won the Montenegrin First League in 2022-23 for the sixth time since 2007-08. It was a close-run thing, for Budućnost were champions by virtue of their head-to-head record with Montengerin Cup winners Sutjeska as the two clubs’ finished on 70 points apiece.
Tre Penne of San Marino won their fifth league title in 2023, finishing just ahead of Cosmos. They are regular participants in Europe, but they always struggle to make an impact. In 2013, they became the first team from San Marino to win a European tie. Tre Penne are up against Icelandic side Breidablik, who qualified by winning the 2022 Besta deild karla by a 10-point margin over second-placed KA. Breidablik are from Kópavogur, the host city of the preliminary round. If they win through and face Budućnost, it will be a repeat of their Conference League meeting in 2022-23.
UEFA have been running these early season Preliminaries in this format for the past six years, hosting them in places like Kosovo, Gibraltar and the Faroe Islands. In 2022-23, it was Reykjavik with local club Víkingur, winning through. The attendances were interesting – the first semi-final between Inter Club d’Escaldes and San Marino’s La Fiorita was watched by only 39 people, the second game, involving Víkingur and Levadia of Estonia had a crowd of 725. The final, held on June 24, 2022, drew a gate of 925. Difficult to anticipate the response being much different this year.
