The flights and hotels have been booked. The credit card has not yet been maximized.
The promise of an adventure with friends on foreign fields feels like a just reward for the hard kilometers that their teams traveled for the entire duration of last season.
But while supporters of Hibs and Dundee United are preparing to fulfill their passports for travel to Denmark and Luxembourg during the next fourteen days, the feeling of anticipation should also be what awaits us with a small degree of fear.
In recent years, the European experience for Premiership parties, to the best of the rest, has not always been invoiced that way.
Although participation is good for the soul and can be beneficial for a club's bank balance, it is often proven to be a curse as a blessing.
Just like the holiday maker who arrives in their half -built hotel, Continental Competition may not be seen in the brochure.
Two years ago the first European draw of United ended in nine years with Tannadice Rocking after a brilliant victory over AZ Alkmaar.
Long -driving supporters were in rapture after their side had taken the Dutch. Only just mentioned manager, it was really the start of his dreams for Jack Ross.
What followed was perhaps the most dramatic collapse in confidence ever witnessed in a Scottish side.
After having lost their next Home League match to Livingston, United was torn apart in the Netherlands. They lost seven goals without an answer and it was perhaps double. Then they just went into free fall.
Heavy defeats for Harten and St. Mirren preceded a defeat of nine goals against Celtic. It was as if someone had eliminated the diet. Ross had disappeared in a flash and undoubtedly cursed the fact that he had inherited such a heavy early assignment.
At least he managed to see the start of that domestic season. Graham Alexander didn't even get that far at Motherwell.
The former Scotland -International had arrived in Fir Park in January 2021 with an assignment to keep the wrestling steel people in the top flight. He achieved that and then led them impressively to fifth place and the following year to Europe.
A qualifying round of a Conference League with Sligo Rovers seemed the perfect way to start the next campaign. What looked like a shoo-in was anything but.
Beated at home and away through the League of Ireland side, Alexander felt the wrath of the believers – and something.
He met chairman Jim McMahon the next day and told him he had arrived at the end of the road. So far the glory of Europe.
Reports for non -announced parties have not always proved to be fatal, but they can be seriously injured.
After Antonio Conte had approved him as the successor to Steve Clarke as Kilmarnock manager in 2019, the first competitive game of Angelo Alessio should have been a cakewalk against Welsh Minnows Connah's Quay Nomads.
A 2-1 way victory in the first stage preceded a very credible 2-0 loss in the rugby park in the return. The former Italy and Chelsea Assistant was borrowed in time from that moment. It was a miracle that he hoped until December before he was inevitably saved.
Two years ago, Lee Johnson also lagged behind the outskirts after Hibs had been humiliating 2-1 losses for Andorran Side Inter Club d'Escaldes.
Although Hibs has the upper hand with a comfortable win in the second row, many fans never forgiven Johnston because they have the guts to tell them to calm down after the ramp in principality. After he was hammered 5-0 by Aston Villa and had lost 3-2 to Livingston, he was shown the door.
But it is not only these early qualifying rounds that eagerly anticipate a continental campaign for every manager.
Participation of a group stage is a different minefield. Task to balance European obligations with domestic bread and butter, many have discovered their costs that this high-wire act is almost impossible.
The return from Robbie Neilson to Hearts saw him remove the team from the championship prior to a third placed Premiership finish in 2022, with the price in the form of European qualification.
After he dealt reasonably well with a brutal schedule until Christmas, Hearts' legs made a seat along the house. They won only three of their last 11 league games and were beaten in third place by an Aberdeen side whose lighter load saw them rise the table after Barry Robson Jim Goodwin succeeded in January.
Robson, however, would quickly appreciate what Neilson had to contend.
In their eight league games immediately after Europe or Conference League matches the following season, the down only claimed one win and two draw. By February 2024, with the team intended for the Bottom-Six, the Bijl fell.
Hearts, by that time under the stewmaster of Steven Naismith, were well on the way to reclaim third place again. The fact that the Tynecastle side was from Europe in August after he was lost against Paok in the Conference League probably had something to do with it.
With European football guaranteed to Christmas, in financial terms, the price for finishing was immediately behind the old company north of £ 5 million.
And yet, for the third consecutive season, the manager who finished third would not see the next term.
With only one draw and eight losses in all matches at the start of last season, Naismith did not even make it at the end of September.
Neil Critchley replaced him and only took one victory of five games immediately after European games while the team worked and finished in the lower six. The Englishman was also quickly on the road.
This weekend his successor Derek Mcinnes takes Harten to be confronted against Stirling Albion and in the midweek their league campaign of the League Cup Group phase with a home game against Dumbarton ends.
It feels a terrible long way of the fierce lights of European football to which the Tynecastle men are used to. But, because they have shocked too many Scottish sides lately, in a certain sense that that cannot be a bad thing.