The New Saints and Caernarfon Town suffered heavy defeats away from home in the first legs of their European second qualifying round ties this week.
On Tuesday night in the UEFA Champions League, TNS travelled to Hungarian giants Ferencváros – who reached the group stages of the competition four years ago – and were beaten 5-0.
The hosts’ starting goalkeeper Denes Dibusz was part of Hungary’s recent EURO 2024 squad, while his international team-mate Endre Botka came off the bench.
After a goalless opening quarter of an hour, the Saints found themselves three goals down in the space of nine minutes as Adama Traore scored twice and Kristoffer Zachariassen also found the net.
Traore, capped 56 times by Mali, completed his hat-trick early in the second half before Brazilian winger Marquinhos completed the scoring from the penalty spot.
It was a similarly challenging night for Caernarfon Town on Thursday as they suffered a 6-0 defeat away to Polish side Legia Warsaw in the UEFA Conference League.
Legia’s captain Artur Jedrzejczyk played at the last two FIFA World Cups for Poland, signifying the scale of the task the Cofis were up against.
Nonetheless, it was a valiant first half performance from Richard Davies’ side, who trailed to Marc Gual’s 22nd-minute opener before an own goal from Stephen McMullan just before half-time.
Former Spain U21 international Gual completed his hat-trick with a brace inside the opening eight minutes of the second half.
Blaz Kramer missed from the penalty spot in the 68th minute but made amends by scoring his side’s fifth of the night three minutes later, while Claude Goncalves grabbed the sixth in stoppage time.
