UEFA Conference League all you need to know: Derry City and Shelbourne in action

Thursday 10 July

UEFA Conference League - First Round Qualifying
FC Bruno's Magpies (Gibraltar) v Derry City - Europa Point Stadium, 5pm
Shelbourne v St Jospeh's (Gibraltar), Tolka Park, 7.45pm

Weather
Dublin: Dry but cloudy in Dublin, with evening highs of 16 degrees. Feeling cooler in a northerly breeze.

Gibraltar: A culture shock for fans heading to Derry's away leg with temperatures set to be around 30 degrees at kick-off time, with uninterrupted sunshine.

Three Irish clubs will be involved in the qualifying stages of the UEFA Conference League this season, with St Patrick's Athletic placed in the second round after their FAI Cup win last November.

So it's 2023 SSE Airtricity League runners-up Derry City and current league leaders Shelbourne who will begin a journey that could potentially take them to the Stadion Wroclaw next May.

New Conference League format

One thing to note about this season's edition is that fewer teams will take part - 168 versus 178 last season - while the tournament proper will feature 36 teams, four up on the 32 who were involved last time out.

Rather than the eight groups of four that we had in 2023/2024, this season will see teams playing three home and away games, but against six different clubs. The top eight will to the last 16, with the next 16 ranked teams going into a two-legged play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition.

There's a long way to go before all of that though, but let's hope there's at least one Irish club that will be heading into the slightly convoluted format come the autumn.

Back to this evening, and there's a Gibraltarian flavour to the Irish interest, with Derry and Shels both facing sides from the British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of