Preview: 2014/15 UEFA Champions League – First Qualifying Round

One month and an half after 2013/14 Final, and while the World Cup is still on going, today 2014/15 UEFA Champions League will start with the First Preliminary Round, in which the winner of the lowest Championships (Gibraltar, Andorra, San Marino, Faroe Islands, Armenia and Estonia), according to UEFA ranking, are involved.
The winners will qualify for Second Qualifying Round, while the losers will end their European adventure, because there is still no “relegation” to UEFA Europa League.

FIRST ROUND

FC Santa Coloma (AND) – FC Banants (ARM) 15%-85%

Despite the Champion of Andorra being seeded in the draw, because of more appearances in UFE Competitons in the recent years, the Armenians should be the favorites, because Andorran Championship should be the weaker in Europe together with the Sammarinese one.
Anyway in FC Santa Coloma there are few relatively experienced players, such as the Captaino of Andorran NT, the defender Ildefons Lima (34 former Triestina player in Italian Serie B), the Equatorial Guineian International Juvenal (35, former Levante, Tenerife, Alavés, Recreativo de Huelva and Sabadell midfielder), the striker Iban Parra (36, he scored several goals in Spanish lower tiers and in Finnish Championship), moreover there are two Argentinians as well, the defender Walter Wagner, 33, and the striker Alejandro Romero, 37.
We don’t know many things about the Armenians, but the most important players should be the Armenian Internationals Gagik Daghbashyan (23, side back) and, most of all, Rumyan Hovsepyan (22, a midfielder who can score several goals), and the Slovak midfielder Peter Štepanovský, 26.

Lincoln Red Imps FC (GIB) – HB (FAR) 50%-50%

This is a difficult match to preview, because teams from Gibraltar are playing UEFA Competitions for the first time, so we don’t have many informations about them: considering the first friendlies of the National Team, that anyway can field few players playing in English and Spanish lower divisions and one in Israeli top tier, we think that clubs from Gigraltar should be stronger than the ones from Andorra and San Marino, as strong as the ones from Faroe Islands and a little bit weaker than the Luxemburgese onese.
Lincoln Red Imps FC‘s key players should be the ones that are part of the local NT team as well, such as Jordan Perez (27, goalkeeper), Ryan Casciaro (30, defender), Roy Chipolina (31, defender), Joseph Chipolina (26, defender), Daniel Duarte (34, midfielder), Kyle Casciaro (27, midfielder), Robert Guilling (33, midfielder) and John-Paul Duarte (27, striker): you’ve probably already noticed that in the squad there are few recurrent family names, such as Casciaro (4 players), Duarte (3), Perez (2) and Chipolina (2).
Clubs from Faroe Islands are alway relatively hard to beat considering the low population in the Country, and mustn’t be taken too easily, because are stronger than the ones from other micro-states and sometimes can cause few upsets.
HB has won the local Championship 22 times so far, and its best players should be the Faroese Intenationals, such as the defenders René Shaki Joensen, 21, Jóhan Troest Davidsen, 26, Heini Vatnsdal ,22, the defender/midfielder, and the Captain as well, Fróði Benjaminsen, 36,  the offensive midfielder Christian Restorff Mouritsen, 25, and the strikers Símun Samuelsen, 29, and Andrew av Fløtum, 35: there’s also a Brazilan, the defender Alex José dos Santos, who probably isn’t afraid of the cold.

SP La Fiorita (SMR) - FC Levadia Tallin (EST) 10%-90%

There are almost no hopes for the team from Monte Titano, that probably got the hardest opponent possible, despite this squad is probably the best team from San Marino of the last years, being able to field few experienced players that played few years ago in Italian Serie B, such as the midfielder Simone Confalone (40, a former Arezzo, Cesena, Bologna Spezia and Ternana player), and the striker Andy Selva (38, a former SPAL, Padova, Sassuolo and Verona footballer): he’s the leading goalscorer in the history of Sanmarinese NT with 8 goals (3 of them were scored to Belgium in three different matches). We can’t omit a mention for the other striker Giacomo Gualtieri and, for anagrafical reasons, for the defender Maurizio Pedrelli, who is 46.
About the Estonians, we point out the names of the players that are called by the local NT, such as Artjom Artjunin (24, defender), Artur Pikk (21, left back), Ilja Antonov (21, central midfielder), Dmitri Kruglov (30, left winger) and Ingemar Teever (31, striker), moreover Vladislav Ivanov (28, striker), the top scorer of the team, and the Egyptian Omar El-Hussieny (28, winger and offensive midfielder) are important as well, while the prospect Artur Rättel, offensive midfielder, will be out because of a serious injury.