After a six-hour flight, the players of Buducnosti arrived this morning in Almaty (Kazakhstan), where they will play a match of the 2nd round of qualification for the Europa League tomorrow against Astana.
With a lot of optimism, Mladen Milinković's team arrived in a country that is exactly 100 times larger than Montenegro, although the bookmakers do not give them too many chances against a team that often played in the group stage of UEFA competitions in previous seasons.
The victory of Astana, namely, values with a coefficient of only 1,20.
Despite the difficult draw, the most difficult possible long flight through four time zones, and despite the very bad balance of the Podgorica team in Europe in the past years, the "blues" say they will do everything to show that the bookmakers were wrong in their estimates.
Can such a "written off" Buducnost finally please the fans, make a surprise in Europe for the first time and eliminate a stronger team on paper?
"We were happy with the results of the coronavirus test, where we were all negative, we are fully ready for Astana and we believe that we can advance to the next round," says midfielder Vasilije Terzić, who will replace the suspended Draško Božović in the midfield.
The resignation of the best football player from last season is another "minus" on the side of the Montenegrin champion, but Astana also has many problems - the team that in the 1st round of Champions League qualification conceded as many as six goals from the Belarusian Dinamo Brest (6:3). therefore twice as much as Budućnost from Ludogorets, welcomes the match at a very bad moment.
"They have problems, but also quality. I watched their last game against Ordabashi, which they won 2:1, and it almost confirmed what I knew about them. I just don't know why the Croatian Marin Tomasov, who is very important for their game, didn't play - whether he was injured, or whether they were guarding him, we will see," says coach Milinković.
Montenegrin representative Žarko Tomašević will not be part of the team due to injury, which includes another Croat, Luka Šimunović, Serbs Antonio Rukavina and Uroš Radaković, as well as Iceland's representative Runar Mar Sigurjonsson and Romania's Dorin Rotariju.
It was Milinković who was the loudest in recent days when it comes to fueling optimism and spreading a positive atmosphere - has the time really come for Budućnost to make a big result in Europe?
"We want to make a surprise. We know it will be difficult, but we also know it is not impossible. Passing to the next round would mean a lot, both for Budućnost and for our fans, and especially for Montenegrin football," Milinković points out.
A mitigating circumstance is that the match is played on natural grass, in Almaty, and not on artificial grass in Nur-Sultan, where Astana mostly plays home matches.
Right in Almaty, at the "Almati Ortalik" stadium, the young national team of Montenegro torpedoed Kazakhstan with 4:0 just a few days ago. One of the actors of the match was Vasilije Terzić.
"We need to play like most of the match against Ludogorets, or like against Titograd in the second half. We feel that we have improved our form, we liked this break and we are ready to match Astana at a high pace, try to make a surprise," Terzić concluded.
The match will be played tomorrow at 20:16 local time, and XNUMX:XNUMX our time.
Teams eliminated by Future in Europe
Baku (Azerbaijan) 2009 (Buducnost officially won the first away match 3:0)
Folgore (San Marino) 2014.
Rabotnički (Macedonia) 2016.
Trans Narva (Latvia) 2019.
The teams that eliminated Bubućnost from Europe
Hajduk Split (Croatia) 2007.
Tampere (Finland) 2008.
Polonia (Poland) 2009.
Brondby (Denmark) 2010.
Fljamurtari (Albania) 2011.
Slask (Poland) 2012.
Omonia (Cyprus) 2014.
Jurmala (Latvia) 2015.
Genk (Belgium) 2016.
Partizan (Serbia) 2017.
Trencin (Slovakia) 2018.
Zarja (Ukraine) 2019.
Ludogorets (Bulgaria) 2020.
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