Jun 25

St Johnstone face Eskişehirspor in Europa League

Written by Andrew Southwick.

St Johnstone face a tough test in the Europa League second qualifying round after drawing Turkish side Eskişehirspor.

The Saints will be at home first on July 19th, before the testing trip toTurkey a week later. By the time of the second leg they will also know their potential opponents for the third qualifying round.

This is St Johnstone's first game in Europe since they lost 6-3 on aggregate to Monaco 12 years ago.

Eskişehirspor finished fifth in the Turkish league last season, and are rumoured to have the likes of Arsenal's Thomas Rosicky on their summer shopping list.

They are better known to Scottish fans for being the club Kris Boyd signed for in 2011, but he only spent five months there and made just two appearances.

They play their matches at the Eskişehir Atatürk Stadium, which has a capacity of 13,520. They are spending 80 million euros on a new 33,500 capacity stadium, a move which has been criticised by many of the supporters who see their current home as "the holy ground".

Their supporters, led by the BandoESES and KoreoESES fan groups, have built a reputation in Turkey for having a passionate, dominant and obsessive atmosphere at games, and have been called the "phenomenon"of Turkey.