It will be a “game of a lifetime” for Liam Gordon when St Johnstone face Galatasaray on Thursday night.
But according to the double-winning defender, the Perth side are capable of bringing the Turkish giants to McDiarmid Park with the Europa League third round qualifier still alive.
And then they would have a chance of knocking them out to set-up a clash with Danish side Randers FC in the next round.
🆕🏆 | We have been drawn to face @Randers_FC in the Europa League play-off round if we progress past @GalatasaraySK #SJFC pic.twitter.com/A7fd1vi17x
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) August 2, 2021
“We know they are a world class team and are renowned for being one of the biggest clubs in Europe,” said Gordon.
“But we’re also more than aware of what threats we can pose and how we can hurt them.
“It is an incredible platform for us and I’d imagine the experience will stay with me for the rest of my days.
“It is the game of a lifetime and we’re all raring to go.
“We’re not going there to take part and enjoy playing against Galatasaray.
“We’re going to do a job and try to get through to the next round. We’re focused on getting a result to take into the game in Perth.”
Household names await
This is the sort of fixture that brings back PlayStation or Xbox memories but a young footballer.
“Some of their players, you would have heard about them on Fifa,” said Gordon. “Some of the best.
“There is Turan, Babel, Falcao and they have just signed van Aanholt. They are household names in Europe.
“To share the pitch with them is something you dream of.
“But you need to keep your professional head on. At the end of the day they are just human beings.
“It will be incredible but we’ll be focusing on the job in hand.
“Since you were a wee guy you’ve see all the videos of Galatasaray fans and the atmosphere they create.
“We’re excited to experience that in the flesh. It will be noisy but we’ll take it in our stride.
“Having a full house to come back to next week would be incredible. We had 300 up in Dingwall but it felt like 3,000.
“McDiarmid Park will be absolutely rocking.”
There was plenty of cause for satisfaction when reflecting on the weekend draw against Ross County. Not the result, though.
“I felt like it was two points dropped and all of the boys were disappointed,” said Gordon.
“We needed to be more clinical and penetrate more in the final third.
“We did more than enough to get the three points.
“If we want to kick on from where we were last season, these are the performances we need to match with results.
“But all in all we can’t get too disheartened. Defensively we were sound and dealt with everything that came our way.
“It was our first game back, a clean sheet and in the second half I thought we got back to where we left off last season.
“There is nothing like a competitive game so we’re delighted to get the league started.”
