FC UNA Strassen Vs Dundee United: The Preview

United take a narrow first-leg advantage to Luxembourg

Jul 30, 2025

In last week’s preview for the first leg, I delved into the proud and impressive European history of Dundee United. This week’s post ahead of the return leg will be shorter, but hopefully not the last European preview of the season for Goodwin’s men. Thursday’s match surely promises more joyous scenes than United’s last away game in Europe - when their first continental away trip in a decade ended in disaster.

Excerpt from Dundee United F.C’s programme from the 1st leg, detailing a history of UNA Strassen from 1921 until present day.

THE PAINFUL RUN

United fans will undoubtedly recall the painful 7-0 annihilation in Alkmaar three years ago at the hands of what turned out to be a very talented AZ side. The previous trip, in Moscow in August 2012, wasn’t much better - a 5-0 thrashing saw them exit 7-2 on aggregate to Dynamo.

In fact, in their last ten European away games stretching back to 1990, Dundee United have only won once: an 8-0 hammering of Andorran minnows CE Principat in 1997, part of the second-highest aggregate win in Scottish European history (17-0).

Last week’s preview detailed the heights some of the AZ Alkmaar players have reached since that 7-0 victory over United.

Like Hibs, Dundee United have never played in the group stages of a UEFA competition. As Scotland’s ‘fourth entrant’, Hibs need to win at least two ties to make history. Unfortunately for Dundee United, it’s three consecutive victorious ties required to reach the league phase. This will obviously be a tall order for Dundee United, given they haven’t won more than one European tie in a season since reaching the UEFA Cup Final in 1987! It’s a sad decline of what was a real European powerhouse in the 1980s - the last Scottish club to be ranked in the top 10 clubs in UEFA’s coefficient rankings (10th in 1990).

United had EIGHT consecutive seasons ranked by UEFA as one of the top 12 teams in Europe, reaching as high as 4th in 1988.

Yet the tangerines have never won more than one European tie in a season since. Modern football is now unrecognisable from those distant days, but the advent of the Conference League offers hope to former European heavyweights like Dundee United…

THE SEASON OF CHANGE

Stade Municipal de la Ville - The venue for Thursday’s match was opened in 2012.

This season will hopefully see an end to that sorry run, with the first victorious European tie since 1997 in the bag on Thursday night. UNA Strassen have still never scored a goal in European football, after three matches, and will be heavily outnumbered by United fans in a sold out Stade Municipal de la Ville in Differdange tomorrow night.

Strassen sold both “covered” seated tickets to United fans, but also uncovered standing tickets, with no segregation to ensure the maximum number of people could attend. It was confirmed to ScottishFootball.info that the pricing structure only avoided a breach of UEFA’s price cap on a technicality - the more expensive tickets are over and above the 5% minimum and so are not covered by the ruling.

United travel with a narrow lead, given to them by Zachary “Zac” Sapsford - one of many new signings at Tannadice this summer. It was a great strike from the 21 year old after he nutmegged a defender to created the space for himself before finding the next from outside the box.

Video: Zac Sapsford scoring the only goal of the 1st leg, source: DUTV

Jim Goodwin will be hoping that Sapsford is able to build on that debut goal in the second leg, which takes place days before the league campaign begins. The United manager was not happy after the first leg, hoping they’d have scored more goals, as he acknowledged they’ll need to play better in the second leg.

Dundee United manager Jim Goodwin: “We're pleased with the clean sheet, scored a really good goal but I think there's certain elements we need to do better…..I would certainly rather be sitting here with a three-goal advantage. At 1-0 it's still very much game on…..There are certainly positives we can take but there's a hell of a lot we need to do better at.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

If Dundee United lose - they are out of Europe. They’d receive a €525,000 elimination fee from UEFA. It would be a horrific upset and damaging for Dundee United’s budget, reputation, and the Scottish coefficient. The only comfort from a financial viewpoint is that elimination means Dundee United would be eligible for solidarity payments this season. All teams from the Premiership that don’t play in a UEFA league phase share in the solidarity pot, which would be worth around a further €1million to United.

If Dundee United progress then those minimum earnings increase to €900,000, and Rapid Vienna almost certainly lie in wait in QR3. Rapid won 2-0 in the first leg which was away from home, so are strong favourites to progress. The Austrians would represent a very tough task - they finished fourth in the Conference League Phase last season, progressing as far as the Quarter-Finals before losing out to Swedish side Djurgårdens.

Dundee United’s route to the Conference League phase, including opponents and prize money.

Rapid would probably be the hardest team United would face in qualifying, as if they defeat the Austrians, Dundee United take their coefficient for the Playoff round and so would be on the seeded side of the draw, and could only face one of the 19 unseeded teams. The draw for this takes place on Monday, and so we’ll know in advance who awaits, should they make it that far. Utrecht, Charleroi, Hadjuk Split and Brondby would likely be some of the teams they’d want to avoid - but there would be several unseeded teams that Dundee United would rightly fancy their chances again, and these teams will be narrowed down further on Monday morning.

Reaching that round takes the minimum UEFA payment to €1.275m, while pulling off the remarkable and reaching the league phase will bring in at least €4.5m in to Tannadice - and that’s assuming six league phase losses. Further prize money is awarded for winning points and progressing in the tournament, plus ticket sales for at least three further home games. European football is incredibly lucrative.