And this kind of Buducnost is the favorite against Milsami and should not shy away from that role.

If they were unlucky in the draw before the first round of the Champions League, when they drew last year's Conference League group stage participant, Armenian Nou, as the seed, the path is open for Buducnost players before the continuation of the competition towards the finals of the third-ranked UEFA club competition.

Moldovan champion Milsami, then San Marino champion Virtus - the Montenegrin champion's European route to the playoffs of the Conference League qualifiers. Dečić was unfortunately eliminated in the third round last season - if a penalty Camouflage If it had ended in the net and not on the hand of the Helsinki goalkeeper, Tuzan would have been in the playoffs, as the only team from our team that was one step away from the group stage, even though the competition system was different back then, and there was no Conference League, Zeta was back in 2012 in the Europa League qualifiers. They eliminated Moldovan Pyunik, Finnish Jyväskylä and Sarajevo, and then ran into the powerful PSV Eindhoven in the playoffs.

Could Buducnost, 13 years later, make it to the playoffs, with the difference that PSV, or any team of that caliber, wouldn't be waiting for them there?

The first (tougher) opponent is the Moldovan champion Milsami, but also a rival that the "blue and white" should not shy away from. On the contrary, many parameters are on the side of the Montenegrin champion, at least the exact - readable ones. Buducnost, for example, has a larger projected budget than Milsami (it is difficult to determine what the budget of the Montenegrin champion is, but it is certainly higher than 700 thousand - how much it took the Moldovans to service the previous championship season), has a team that is worth more on the market (5,19 million, compared to 4,23 - data from Transfermarkt), and is also the favorite according to bookmakers.

But football is not mathematics - two and two often do not make four when you run onto the pitch. In short - the Montenegrin champion did well in the draw for the 2nd round of the Conference League, is the favorite against Milsami and should not shy away from that role, although it is clear that it has a tough job ahead of it.

Buducnost convinced few people in the two-legged tie against Noa that they had a defined team and player (football) parameters for such a long European summer, but with their fight, desire and character, they almost caused a sensation in the second leg against Gorica and took the two-legged tie against Noa to extra time with a player less. There remains hope that the team under the leadership Nenad Lalatović progressed with an additional seven days of work, and the rival is not so strong. On the contrary - the paradox is that the rivals are getting weaker and weaker: until the play-off stage.

Milsami's greatest strength is the team, unity on the field and coaching. Only a team with such characteristics, led by a coach Igor Pikuščjak, former Moldovan national team player (played in 2013 against Montenegro in Chisinau - 0:1, goal Mirko Vučinić) was able to rise from 5th place to the championship title in the second half of the season. This detail alone reflects the sensation that occurred in the Moldovan Super League, and it is a precedent that Sherif, a team with a budget ten times larger than Milsami, finished second in the standings despite not suffering a single defeat the entire season.

In the last round, a real final was played between Milsami and Šerif and it ended 0:0 - it ended with an equal number of points, but the team from Orehija became the champion due to the better head-to-head score.

A true spring revolution that, at least for now, has not been extended into the summer, as Milsami was narrowly eliminated (1:0 on aggregate) by Finnish champions KuPS at the start of the Champions League qualifiers. And here he is at Buducnost...

The main strength of the team is made up of foreigners - there were as many as eight of them in the starting 11 in the second leg against the Finns, but they are not expensive foreigners. The most valuable, for example, is a striker with a Norwegian flag. Kabama Kalabatama - 400 thousand, according to Transfermarkt, which is still less than the market value Ognjen Gašević (500 thousand) or Ilya Serikov (450) from Buducnost.

Both in January, during the mid-season, and now in the summer transfer window, Milsami brings in players who are free, without compensation - so they have now "found" and Abdul Jodu, a midfielder from Burkina Faso, who came from Danish second division side Hobra. They also have two players from Nigeria, one even from Niger, then a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, a Belgian - but also all players whose market value does not exceed 350 thousand.

Milsami is a young club, founded in 2005, from a small town, Orhehi, with a population of only 20 thousand. And judging by its representation in the Moldovan sports media, it is clear that it is not a big club - Sherif, Zimbru, Petrokub, Dacia have much greater representation...

Milsami is, after all, the current champion - for the second time in history, he was also in 2015. And he is an obstacle for Buducnost in what could be an unforgettable European summer. Unforgettable in the positive, because in the negative it is already so, considering what has happened in and around the club in the past two months.