Cypriot football has come a long way since that infamous day in 1989 when Richard Gough scored a crucial World Cup qualifying winner so deep into added time they’d almost made the draw for the finals.
The island’s national team was then in the midst of an almost 20-year run without a single competitive victory, hence their bamboozlement when Scotland sneaked a memorably ugly win in their memorably ugly kit.
The Scottish game, of course, has also travelled a significant distance in those years. In the opposite direction. Hence we are now in the position where Aberdeen, the second best side in Scotland, is the unseeded underdog in a Europa League match against the third-ranked of Cyprus.
Apollon Limassol will be another intriguing assignment in the Dons’ growing Europa League log book, one not dissimilar to the successful matches against Groningen and Rijeka.
As in both of those cases, Aberdeen next face an opponent which outranks them – fairly comfortably – but which in the context of what the draw could have served them is acceptably manageable.
Cypriot clubs have made a noticeable splash in European competitions this decade, but none has made the group stages of either since 2014 as the island experienced economic struggle.
That a player such as Kari Arnason should seek to leave the Cypriot top flight to join Aberdeen suggests the gap is not as wide as the coefficients indicate.
But whether it is or not, Aberdeen have already held up their end of the bargain by yet again reaching the third qualifying round in impressive style. Siroki Brijeg literally means Broad Hill and there were times in this tie when it felt as if the Dons were trying to run up said landmark.
But now having conquered it, the Dons can gaze upon another electric night at Pittodrie, and dream of climbing higher still.