Stephen Bradley insists it is not about the money tonight, it’s about sending a message.
With €500,000 on offer for every group stage win, Shamrock Rovers could bank more in one night against Swedish giants Djurgardens than they would get for winning four league titles.
And the €166,000 for drawing the game is not to be sniffed at either for a club already €3.3 million to the good for their European exploits to date.
But Hoops boss Bradley insists he and his players won’t be thinking about swelling the club’s coffers when they put their perfect home record on the line.
“No, it’s not of interest to us,” he said. “It’s about making sure we perform first of all. If we perform, let’s see if that can bring the result. That’s all we focus on.”
Djurgardens - who Rovers lost 5-1 on aggregate to in the old UEFA Cup back in 2002 - are fourth seeds in the group, with Rovers third.
The bookies still make the Swedes hot favourites to land the points but Bradley has no intention of binning his aspirations of progressing to the knockout stages.
That was the target he set ahead of the draw that saw Rovers also pitched in with Gent of Belgium and Norwegian aces Molde.
Bradley, who reckons Molde will be the strongest team in the group, said last night: “I’d imagine Djurgardens are the favourites, but we’ve faced that a number of times.
“It’s nothing new. And we’re ok with that. We believe we can win games in this group. Is it going to be difficult? Yeah. Is it against good teams, big clubs? Yeah.
“But at the end of the day, it is 11 men against 11 men on the pitch and we believe we can win games in this group. You need certain things to go your way, but we believe we can win games.”
Rovers need to pick up the pieces following Friday’s league defeat away to arch rivals Bohemians, but Bradley feels they will draw strength from their previous European tests.
This season in Tallaght, Rovers have seen off Hibernians of Malta, Ludogorets of Bulgaria, North Macedonia’s Shkupi and Hungarian giants Ferencvaros.
But Bradley said: “It's not just those games, it's what we have been doing for the last few years, what we have built, it's what we built towards and the style we play.
“It’s been geared towards when we play in Europe that it helps us and suits us and we don't have to change.
“Djurgardens are a very good side, they are near the top of their domestic league and when you watch them you can see they are really well coached.
“They have some really dangerous players in the team and they play off a structure and a real plan, they are a really good team.
“(Magnus) Eriksson is a standout player, a player of real quality and the left winger (Gustav Wikheim)is a real danger, in transitions he is really dangerous, direct and very quick, clever.
“The full backs are very attack-minded, especially the right back (Piotr Johansson) and the centre forward (Victor Edvardsen) scored a brilliant goal against APOEL - they have real threats.”
“We know these are a difficult team, a good side, but we believe that when we hit our levels we can cause any team problems and hurt any team. And Djurgardens will be no different.”
As a player, Bradley had just left Rovers by the time the club made history as the first Irish side to reach the group stages of a European competition in 2011.
He went to Tallaght for some of their Europa League group games when Harry Kane, as a teenager, scored his first ever goal for Tottenham against the Hoops.
Rovers will face up and coming players in this campaign who could go on to become stars in their own right, but Bradley said: “We have players that want to achieve as well.
“It's the same for both clubs, we know they have some very good players, you only have to look at them for 10 minutes to see they have very good players.
“But so have we and our players will have ambitions just like their players. That's the same for any club that wants to be better, to be ambitious, to improve and to be better every year.”
