League of Ireland champions Dundalk sealed their place in Irish football folklore on Tuesday night with a 3-0 rout of perennial Champions League entrants BATE Borisov in Tallaght.
Victory for the Lillywhites guarantees them a place in the Europa League group stages (Dundalk are just the second Irish club to accomplish this after Shamrock Rovers in 2011), but more importantly, it keeps alive their chances of reaching the Champions League proper and earning themselves even more moola than the metric shit-ton this European campaign has already bequeathed upon the club.
After last night's results which thankfully (from an Irish perspective, anyway) saw Olympiakos bow out, Dundalk will face one of five European sides to reach the promised land.
Cypriot champions APOEL Nicosia, Czech champions Viktoria Plzen, Austrian champions Red Bull Salzburg, Polish champions Legia Warsaw and Scottish champions Celtic will be hoping to draw their Irish counterparts for a place in the group stages.
But which opposition would be the optimal draw for Dundalk, and provide the Louth men with the best opportunity of going through?
From worst case scenario to best, we've previewed all five teams.
5) Red Bull Salzburg
The Austrian champions lie second-from-bottom in the Bundesliga after two games, but won the league by nine points last season.
In many respects, they find themselves in a similar position to Dundalk; Salzburg have never reached the group stages of the Champions League in its current format, but have a significant history in Europe having reached the UEFA Cup final in 1994 (losing to Inter).
They're managed by former Barcelona midfielder Oscar García, who you'll likely remember from fruitful stints in charge of both Brighton and Watford in England.
Following a total rebranding and subsequent split from thousands of protesting supporters (some of whom went on to form a new club, Austria Salzburg) a decade ago, Red Bull Salzburg have gone from strength to strength, winning seven of the last 10 Austrian Bundesligas. Their current outfit has a distinctly international flavour, with two 21-year-old Brazilian midfielders in Bernardo and new recruit Wanderson adding a defensive and offensive balance to a pacey young side. Marc Rzatkowski's arrival from St. Pauli back in June was a coup, while Croatian underage stand-out Duje Ćaleta-Car, who narrowly missed out on their senior Euros squad, anchors an all-foreign defence.
A trip to the 31,000-capacity Red Bull Arena would prove arguably the trickiest tie of the bunch for the League of Ireland champions.
Star Man: Jonathan Soriano
Jonathan Soriano has been ripping the living piss out of lower echelon European leagues for the past seven years. The Spanish striker has notched a farcial 160 goals in 179 appearances for Salzburg, following a 59-goal haul in 84 appearances for Barcelona B. He scored a hat-trick in Salzburg's 5-0 Austrian Cup final win in May.
New signing Wanderson came off the bench to score against Partizan Belgrade in the last round of Champions League qualifier and is also one to watch.
APOEL
The Cypriot champions won their championship at a canter last season, losing two and drawing two of their final five fixtures. APOEL struggled to a 0-0 draw in Wales when they played TNS in the second qualifying round of this season's Champions League, battering the Welshmen in the return leg at the intimidating GSP Stadium. TNS' home draw, though, bodes well for the altogether superior Dundalk, and even their 3-0 return leg defeat was a cagey affair, with the Cypriots netting an injury time penalty which added some gloss to the score.
APOEL's inspired late, late show vs the resurgent Rosenborg on Tuesday night got them out of jail following a 2-1 defeat in Norway. Their three stoppage time goals, however, look more formidable on paper than they really were; one was enough to send them through on away goals, and a heartbroken Rosenborg collapsed when it was scored with minutes remaining. It did, however, prove APOEL's resilience
It's now four years since Cyprus' capital club made history by reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League, but the current crop are nowhere near as formidable as their Aílton-inspired predecessors. At this stage of the competition any side will prove difficult, but Dundalk will hardly fear being paired with their Cypriot equivalents on Friday.
Star Man: Tomás De Vicenti
The 27-year-old Argentine no.10 excels sitting behind striker Pieros Sotiriou. After inauspicious spells at Kalamata and Olympiakos, De Vicenti has scored 42 goals in 101 APOEL appearances. But he hasn't played against Stephen O'Donnell yet.
Celtic
Though the Scottish champions are undoubtedly the heavyweights of Dundalk's potential foes, there's nothing to suggest they're the most dangerous side of the five - on current form at least.
Brendan Rodgers' side recovered relatively well from humiliation in Gibraltar, but the 2003 UEFA Cup finalists were drawn into a dogfight against relative minnows Astana.
Rodgers' reigns tend to be slow-burners before he properly implements his philosophy - yes, he does have one - and Celtic have looked nervy throughout this European campaign thus far. A potentially mouth-watering double-header would naturally see the Scots enter as favourites, but on a rampant Dundalk - and a red-hot David McMillan in particular - would certainly fancy their chances of unlocking a porous Bhoys defence, which has struggled aerially in their four games to date.
Star Man: Moussa Dembele
The 20-year-old new recruit was the hero at Parkhead when he both won and converted a penalty to see Celtic advance at Astana's expense. He averaged almost a goal every three games as a teenager for Fulham, and could well go on to become a legend should Rodgers keep hold of him for more than a couple of seasons.
Legia Warsaw
The Polish champions lie joint-fifth after their opening three league fixtures, and were forced to battle past Slovakian champs AS Trenčín in the previous round.
We last saw Legia Warsaw in the Champions League proper when they upset Premier League champions Blackburn in '95/96. Since then, they have failed to reach the group stages on four occasions, including twice in the last three seasons.
Legia won the Polish title by two points last season, with 28 of their 58 league goals being scored by one player. They also conceded 28 goals in their 30 league games, and are far from impenetrable at the back - particularly down their right flank where Daryl Horgan would likely find success up against Bartosz Bereszynski.
They might have thumped Pats in 2014, but the Polish champions have scored just eight goals in their opening nine fixtures this season, so if there was ever a good time to catch them for Dundalk, this would surely be it.
Star Man: Nemanja Nikolić
Neglected by his native Serbia, Nikolić opted instead to represent Hungary at international level. Following a 123-goal, five-year spell in his adopted homeland, the 28-year-old transferrred to Warsaw where he had netted an absurd 40 goals in 60 appearances, four of which have arrived in his first five appearances this season.
Viktoria Plzen
In their first four friendly games of pre-season, the Czech champions scored 18 goals, conceding seven. Things tightened up considerably in July, as Viktoria picked up a 1-0 win in their league opener - this sandwiched between a 1-1 away goals progression at Azerbaijani club Qarabağ's expense in the third qualifying round for the Champions League.
The Czech club's finest hour came in 2012 - a 5-0 aggregate victory over Napoli taking them to the Last 16 of the Europa League - but a year previous they finished third in a Champions League group containing Barcelona and AC Milan (this just a year after winning their first league title).
They finished third in their group again three years later, but have since failed to progress beyond the qualifying stage.
Plzen's entire squad consists almost entirely of Czech players, with four Slovaks being the only non-homegrown talent at the club. New manager Roman Pivarník is was himself born on the Slovak side of Czechoslovakia, but his only major honour is a second division title with Tatran Prešov in 2008. He was presented with the opportunity after title-winning coach Karel Krejci announced in May that he would not return to Plzen, opting instead to focus on his role as assistant manager with the Czech national side - a position he took in 2014.
Pivarník has previous in taking a winning formula and putting a kibosh on it, having been sacked by reigning cup champions Sigma Olomouc after less than a year at the helm in 2012. Were Dundalk to draw his Viktoria outfit and register a win in their home first leg, the Czech champions and manager will find their backs to the wall before their season really gets started.
Star Man: Michal Ďuriš
The Slovakian international striker scored 16 league goals in 25 appearances last season, and has notched four times for his country since his international debut in 2012. Supplied in large by Plzen's midfield maestro and fellow Slovakian international Patrik Hrošovský, Ďuriš is - by some distance - the most dangerous prospect for Dundalk defenders should this tie take place.
