Newcastle are going Dutch to start repairing the damage to their European image and income stream.
Sir Bobby Robson, his players and directors yesterday suffered the fall-out from the shoot-out disaster against Partizan Belgrade and the resulting eviction from Thursday's draw for the Champions League, in the form of the also-ran lottery of the UEFA Cup.
NAC Breda will either capitalise on the St James's depression or catch the backlash. The financial significance was underlined by the chief operations officer, Russell Cushing.
"Naturally being in the UEFA Cup slows your progress but we'd never budget on the assumption of reaching the Champions League," said Cushing. "It depends on how far we get but we are looking at £12m less - but not that much if we get to the final."
Robson, though, is relishing the trip to the Netherlands. "I'm very pleased to be going back to Holland, where I spent three very enjoyable years," said the Newcastle boss who had two successful periods in charge at PSV Eindhoven, the second just before he went to Tyneside.
"The Breda Stadium is a nice one and relatively new. And it's close to Eindhoven, where I worked. I know Dutch football very well and all the teams there play good football, so I'm sure it will be a very good footballing encounter."
Liverpool missed Champions League entry by one place at the end of the past Premiership season. The pursuit of consolation by the 2001 UEFA Cup winners for increasingly restive fans begins against Olimpija Ljubljana from Slovenia. Southampton will also head for eastern Europe after drawing Romanian's Steaua Bucharest, the 1986 European champions.
Manchester City's reward for their qualifying win over TNS of Wales is an actual visit to the continent, albeit only as far as Belgium to face Lokeren.
"It is a very good draw when you look at where some of the other teams have got to go," admitted City boss Kevin Keegan. "There are longer trips and more difficult places to go - so in that sense the draw is a good one.
"The first game is at home and there are different views about whether that is a good thing or not - but I am just delighted we are in there. It is a bonus for us and we will enjoy it for as long as we can."
Anglo-Turkish relations could be tested further by Blackburn's visit to Genclerbirligi, although the Turks' deputy secretary Suphi Yalcinkaya said: "Ankara is not Istanbul and there will be a very different atmosphere at our stadium. We usually only get 3,000 or 4,000 fans but they are real football fans and not interested in trouble."
Bosnia's Zeljeznicar may test Hearts while Dundee could struggle against Perugia, one of the InterToto Cup-winners.
The draw will have compounded the misery of National League sides Shelbourne and Derry City, both of whom missed out on highly lucrative first round ties due to their defeats this week.
Ljubljana's Olimpija, who comfortably beat Shelbourne to progress, have landed Liverpool in the next stage, a draw that would have guaranteed a huge financial windfall to the Dubliners had they managed to beat the Slovenians.
Apoel of Nicosia, meanwhile, were also well rewarded for their defeat of City, with the Cypriots being handed a visit to Real Mallorca and a tidy sum from television rights in the first round proper.
