Preview: St Patrick's Athletic hoping for one of the great European shocks

St Patrick's Athletic begin a tie this evening that they hope will be historic for the club.

They have the chance to become just the third League of Ireland side to reach the group stages of a European competition.

To get this far in the Conference League they've seen off Liechtensteiner outfit Vaduz and Azerbaijani side Sabah, but what awaits them later on is an altogether tougher proposition.

In the last decade Istanbul Basaksehir have appeared in the group stages of the Champions League, the Europa League and the Conference League.

They beat Manchester United in the Champions League in November of 2020, while they were in the last 16 of the tournament they're trying to qualify for this evening just 18 months ago.

International experience

They certainly have modern European group stage calibre.

While their squad is not as strong as it was a few seasons ago, they still have the experience and firepower to cause Stephen Kenny some real worry later.

The group is littered with current and former internationals, amongst them Jerome Opoku (Ghana), Dimitrios Pelkas (Greece), Deniz Turuc, Berat Özdemirand and Berkay Ozcan (all Turkey) and Algeria's Ahmed Touba.

They've been solid defensively with just four goals conceded in their six competitive games so far this season. At the other end of the park, they have star power up front.

Striker Krzysztof Piatek is a Polish international who saw game time at the Euros during the summer, scoring in his country's 3-1 defeat to Austria.

He broke the resolve of Iberia 1999 of Georgia in the last round of Conference League qualifying with a goal to put the Turkish outfit 2-0 up on aggregate, while he also scored 17 times last season in the Super Lig.

Piatek opened Basaksehir's account in their 4-2