FK Rabotnicki Preview

By Mark Heys
September 19 2007

Bolton Wanderers begin their UEFA Cup campaign tommorow evening when they take on Macedonian league leaders FK Rabotnicki Kometal in their first round, first leg tie at the Skopje City Stadium.

The Wanderers will be hoping to make similar progress in the competition to that of two years ago when they reached the latter stages of the competition before being knocked out by Olympique Marseille.

In 2005-2006 the Trotters passed the initial first round and the Group stages in what was their first ever venture in continental competition.

Rabotnicki are twice winners of the Macedonian first league and have previous experience in the UEFA Cup competition in the 2001-2002 campaign.

Bolton manager Sammy Lee will be without left back Jlloyd Samuel for the match in Skopje after the defender was stretchered off during Saturday's 1-0 defeat against Birmingham City.

Long serving Jamaican Ricardo Gardner is expected to replace Samuel after making his first appearance of the season at the weekend.

Striker Heidar Helguson (ankle), midfielder Blerim Dzemaili (knee) and Ricardo Vaz-Te (hamstring) are unlikely to be in contention for the game.

Summer signings Andy O'Brien and Christian Wilhelmsson are expected to make the squad after recovering from knocks picked up in recent matches.

The likes of Stelios Giannakopoulos, Danny Guthrie, Ivan Campo and Zoltan Harsanyi will be hoping to be involved for the first time this season.

Rabotnicki boss Dragoljub Bekvalac will have most of his star players available including defenders Zoran Jovanovski and Nikola Karcev and striker Ivan Pevcic.

UEFA CUP FACTS AND FIGURES

El-Hadji Diouf was the first person to score a goal for Bolton in this competition when netting against Bulgarian side Lokomotiv Plovdiv at the Reebok Stadium on 15th September 2005.

Stelios Giannakopoulos, Ricardo Vaz-Te, Kevin Nolan, Bruno N'Gotty and Jared Borgetti have also found the net for the Wanderers when in the UEFA Cup.

Bolton's European exploits have seen them take on teams from Bulgaria, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, France and Russia.

Boban Jancevski scored the first goal against Bolton in the UEFA Cup when scoring for Plovdiv. Ironically Jancevski is a Macedonian national.

Ian Walker, Fabrice Fernandes and Hidetoshi Nakata all made their Bolton debuts in this competition.