Uefa Cup, Group D: Middlesbrough have qualified already for the knockout stage but they will be keen to beat the Bulgarian side Liteks Lovetch tonight to finish top of their group and as a result avoid in the last 32 a team who have dropped out of the Champions League.
A comfortable victory would enable Middlesbrough to stay ahead of AZ Alkmaar, who are level on points but have an inferior goal difference.
Liteks are third in the group, a point behind Middlesbrough, and could conceivably still win the group.
They are fourth in the Bulgarian league, having won seven of their last eight games and lost only one of their last 13.
Milivoje Novakovic, a highly regarded striker, is the greatest danger to Steve McClaren's side but Liteks will face two relative unknowns in Middlesbrough's 18-year-old left-winger Adam Johnson and 19-year-old central midfielder Jason Kennedy.
While Johnson, an England youth international, played in Middlesbrough's Premiership defeat of Arsenal, Kennedy has not featured in the first XI since coming on as a substitute in a 1-1 draw against Fulham last season.
They can anticipate being deployed alongside at least three more fellow graduates of the club's academy in James Morrison, Matthew Bates and Brad Jones, who is expected to replace Mark Schwarzer in goal.
McClaren has, however, warned the Champions League drop-outs his players are scared of nobody.
If they finish second in the group they could face either Bruges, FC Thun, Udinese, Lille, Schalke, Rosenborg, Real Betis or Artmedia Bratislava, who all fared better than McClaren's former club Manchester United, but he insists he and his players would relish the test.
He said: "Talking to the players and looking at our team and our squad and how we are playing in Europe, I do not think we are scared of anybody.
"Nobody, I'm sure, in the draw, would like to come up against us whether that's a Champions League team or not.
"The players don't mind. They fought long and hard to get into Europe and the nights so far have been disappointing because, while the results have been good, the crowds have been poor and they have not really felt like European nights a la Lazio and Ostrava and Sporting Lisbon last season.
"They want that kind of atmosphere, they want that kind of European night.
"If it's a big team, I don't think the players would mind. I certainly wouldn't."
Middlesbrough have eased their way into through the group stage with victories over Grasshoppers in Zurich and Ukrainian side Dnipro at home, although it was the 0-0 draw in Alkmaar against Louis van Gaal's beaten semi-finalists of last year which enhanced their growing European pedigree.
McClaren continued: "We qualified last season and in our first campaign in Europe, we played Lazio. "I've got quite a few friends in Italy and, when we beat Lazio, they phoned me up and said 'Middlesbrough are on the European map' because that was a huge victory against one of their top teams.
"We have established again by qualifying that we are a force to be reckoned with with our record so far."
The progress the club has made under McClaren since 2001 has been spectacular, with the 2004 League Cup win sparking a first ever sortie into Europe followed by a second virtue of qualification via the Premiership.
McClaren, meanwhile, has warned Tottenham not to bother making a rumoured second bid for winger Stewart Downing when the transfer window opens next month.
Middlesbrough v Litex Lovech at Riverside Stadium
On TV: Setanta Sports, 7.45
