The road from Manchester to Bucharest promises to be tiring, challenging, tactically intriguing, culturally stimulating and, in places, incredibly hard to read.
No one knows quite how many rounds of the Europa League Manchester City and Manchester United will manage to navigate but assumptions that Roberto Mancini and Sir Alex Ferguson are automatically destined to occupy opposing technical areas in the Romanian capital's National Stadium on 9 May appear premature.
England's Champions League rejects take their first steps towards the final of Europe's second competition in the new year but, on Friday, they will learn the identity of their first "round of 32" opponents when the draw takes place in Nyon, Switzerland.
United and City have both been seeded and will be paired with one of the 12 Europa League group stage runners-up or one of the four worst-positioned dropouts from the continent's elite contest. This dictates that Ferguson and Mancini will surely be taking an unusually close interest in the results of the final round of group games on Wednesday and Thursday night.
They will see whether the Romanian minnows FC Vaslui have pipped Lazio to second place in Group D. If Vaslui's 11,220-capacity Municipal Stadium represents one potential destination for the Manchester clubs, other medium-haul possibilities include Russia's Lokomotiv Moscow or Rubin Kazan, Turkey's Besiktas or Trabzonspor and Israel's Maccabi Haifa.
Metalist Kharkiv are notoriously tough opponents at this level but City and United will at least be spared a prospective meeting with the group-winning Ukrainian heavyweights from a remote city studded with statues of Lenin until a later round. Alternatively, they could find themselves facing Stoke City.
Pat Nevin cannot wait to see how the Manchester pair fare. "The Europa League is such a refreshing, interesting competition because, unlike the Champions League, no one has a clue who will win it," said the former Chelsea and Everton winger who provides Europa League analysis for Channel 5.
With Porto, Ajax, Udinese, Paris St Germain, Schalke, Atlético Madrid, Valencia and PSV Eindhoven among the better-known names likely to feature in the knockout phase, Nevin feels it would be a mistake for Mancini or Ferguson to adopt a patronising approach.
"The English have an unbelievably arrogant attitude towards the Europa League," Nevin said. "Spain, France, Scotland and the rest of Europe have very different views towards it. Because of that unbelievable arrogance, those sneeringly dismissive attitudes, everybody will be out to do everything they can to beat the English teams."
He believes resisting such pressures could prove character-forming. "At the moment Manchester United have quite a few young lads in their team with not a lot of European experience but the need to perhaps get a draw at Kharkiv on a freezing Thursday night could really bring them together as a group and teach them how to get results in difficult places."
While Ferguson and Mancini must grapple with the unknown – "everybody knows everything about Champions League teams but there are a lot of great technical players no one has heard of in the Europa League," said Nevin – City's squad may yet find a successful formula for continental combat. "Manchester City have some brilliant players with plenty of individual Champions League experience but, as a group, they still need to learn how to win in Europe," added Nevin. "Another spell in the Europa League could teach them a lot."
Last March City reached the last 16 before bowing out to Dynamo Kyiv 2-1. Eschewing the Uefa tradition of training on your opponent's pitch the night before a game, City flew into Ukraine late after holding a final practice session in Manchester. With most players dispatched directly to their hotel, only Mancini and Edin Dzeko attended the official media conference at the Valeriy Lobanovskiy Stadium. It swiftly became clear that Kyiv's management were affronted by this perceived slight. With Ukrainian journalists deriding "English arrogance", Mancini's team kicked off at a decided disadvantage. Quite apart from struggling to get to grips with an awkward, totally unfamiliar, playing surface – let alone evening temperatures of -6C – City were confronted, and deservedly beaten, by highly motivated, fully psyched-up rivals.
Nevin struggles to comprehend such disdain. "The Europa League doesn't offer anything like the sort of money clubs can make from the Champions League," he said. The Europa League may not offer big money, he said, "But don't most United and City fans want their teams to try and win a respected European trophy? Isn't football supposed to be about glory?"
For travelling fans the Europa League is often about broadening horizons. At a time when much of Europe is becoming homogenised and even the more glamorous Champions League destinations can feel heavily corporatised, it boasts a quirky charm. Not to mention a ticket to rewardingly different, off the beaten track, destinations yet to figure on the mainstream European citybreak map.
