After suffering a narrow defeat in the first leg, Hamrun Spartans will be all out to overturn the result in their favour with a win over Lincoln Red Imps in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League first qualifying round at the Europa Point Stadium in Gibraltar on Tuesday, kick-off at 18:00.

The Spartans need to beat their opponents by a two-goals difference in order to reach the next stage where they would face the strong Qarabağ FK of Azerbaijan in the second qualifying round. If not successful, Hamrun would proceed to the UEFA Conference League second qualifying round where they would face the loser of FC Ballkani of Kosovo vs UE Santa Coloma of Andorra, probably the latter following Ballkani’s 2-1 win away from home in the first leg.

Coach Alessandro Zinnari could not field his best formation due to the absence of Elionay who was sent off early in the game last week but it would be no surprise should he make further changes to the starting line-up in a bid to add more firepower.

Hamrun are hoping to become the first Maltese club to reach the group stage of a European club competition, something they were so close to achieving in 2022 when they made it to the play-off round after eliminating Alashkert of Armenia, Velez Mostar of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Levski Sofia of Bulgaria, losing out to Partizan Belgrade. Last year, their run was halted by Ferencvaros in the third qualifying round.

Lincoln Red Imps, on the other hand, did manage to qualify for the group stage four years ago when they eliminated Fola Esch from the UEFA Champions League first qualifying round and after losing to CFR Cluj in the second qualifying round. and Slovan Bratislava in the UEFA Europa League third qualifying round, they defeated Riga FC in the Play-Off round of the UEFA Europa Conference League to qualify for the group stage.

In fact, should Hamrun eliminate Lincoln Red Imps, they would be guaranteed a spot in the UEFA Conference League play-offs since teams eliminated from the UEFA Champions League second qualifying round will be transferred to the UEFA Europa League third qualifying round and the losers of the UEL third qualifying round will be transferred to the UEFA Conference League play-offs.