Jay Emmanuel-Thomas wants to make his first European campaign as an Aberdeen player a memorable one by helping the Dons qualify for the group stages of the competition.
The former Livingston striker is set to make his competitive debut for Stephen Glass’ side in Thursday’s second qualifying round first leg against BK Hacken of Sweden at Pittodrie and he is in no doubt about the target.
He said: “Playing in the European group stages would be everybody’s main target. We know we have to win a few games to get there, but it is nothing that can’t be done.
“Hopefully we get the draw in the qualifying rounds that we can go on and win.”
On Monday, the Dons found out a win over two legs against Hacken will see them play either Austria Wien or Iceland’s Breidablik in the third qualifying round. Get past the third round and they would still need to navigate a play-off to reach their goal of the groups.
Playing in the Champions League with Arsenal
Emmanuel-Thomas has had to be patient for his next chance to play in European competition with his previous experience coming as a youngster at Arsenal away at Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk.
He said: “I remember the first game, because that was my Champions League appearance. It was a big game and it was great for me as a young player. Shakhtar has a really distinctive stadium with loud fans. It was a good game to be involved in.
“I travelled to numerous Champions League games. I wasn’t involved in a couple of them because of registration issues.
“I had come back off loans and wasn’t registered for the European games at the time. I went to places like Barcelona, but I wasn’t named in the playing squad.
“I have a lot of experiences from a young age travelling around Europe with the Arsenal first-team.”
The moments may have been fleeting, but they were certainly memorable and the Aberdeen striker had wondered if he would get another chance.
He said: “To play in such a competition you need to be playing in the top three or four of every competition.
“I had done it twice and maybe I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen again. I was never going to pass up the opportunity.”
The Hacken clashes this Thursday and next will be Aberdeen’s preparations for the new domestic campaign and Emmanuel-Thomas hopes Europe can help his club make a strong start to their Premiership season against Dundee United at Pittodrie on August 1.
He said: “After we play these two games, we have three days before the first game in the Premiership.
“We will be able to build up good momentum going into that first game.
“Hopefully that first line of games we have coming up in the league we can be quite successful in picking up results.”