Houston: AEK tie a huge occasion

18 August 2010 17:00
Dundee United manager Peter Houston has backed his players to cope with the huge occasion of returning to the European stage - because they proved their bottle at Hampden in May. The Scottish Cup winners face AEK Athens aiming to get to the Europa League group stages for their first time. Houston, who has been unable to see their opponents in the flesh because the Greek season is yet to start, admits the preparation for meeting Dusan Bajevic's side is similar to the cup final build-up and expects his players to respond in the same way. He said: "It's been the same as any preparation for a massive game, the Scottish Cup was a massive game for us to try and win so it has felt similar. "This is my first European match as a manager, although it's not the first time I've coached in Europe as I did that with Craig Levein at Hearts a few times. "But the whole road leading into it is very different from the SPL because you know the players inside out, whereas here they are not so familiar. So this is a whole new challenge and as our players won't know the AEK Athens boys we have had to build up a dossier."

Source: PA