There was no dream tie with Aston Villa for The New Saints – instead, they will head to Bulgaria to face CSKA Sofia in the fourth qualifying play-off round of the Uefa Europa League.

The Oswestry-based Saints had hoped to cross swords with Villa after being placed in the same pot as the Midlands big guns in yesterday’s draw in Nyon, Switzerland.

But they must now travel to Eastern Europe for what represents a tough trek against a club who have won the Bulgarian domestic title 31 times.

The Welsh Premier champions, however, can take heart from their Champions League exploits, having reached the fourth qualifying round of the Europa League for the first time after defeating Irish club Bohemians (agg 4-1) before losing to Belgian giants Anderlecht 6-1 on aggregate.

The first leg will be away in Bulgaria on Thursday, August 19 with the return a week later, most likely to be at Wrexham’s Racecourse ground.

Owner Mike Harris admits TNS would have liked a shot at Villa, but believes the trip to Sofia will again show the giant strides the club have made on the European stage.

“The grouping gave us a chance of pulling Aston Villa out of the hat which would have been a nice draw, being just down the road,” he said.

“But CSKA Sofia are another big name and if we can get past them, it would put the club on a platform alongside many of the other big clubs of Europe and it would obviously bring a lot of well-needed profile to our league.

“Our league has been continuing to improve year on year and I think you’ll find that the performances turned in by the clubs in Wales are getting to the point where we are going to be able to regularly compete past the first rounds of these club competitions.”

He added: “Against Anderlecht we more than held our own there. The gap is regularly closing and hopefully over the next few years we’ll close the gap further.”

CSKA, which stands for Central Sports Club of the Army, will face TNS m in the 44,000 capacity National Stadium in Sofia, where the hosts expect a crowd of around 10,000.

The Buglarians reached this stage of the competition by beating Cliftonville 2-1 at Windsor Park for a 5-1 aggregate win.

They are certain to provide a tough hurdle having earned a place in the Europa League group stages last season after defeating Dynamo Moscow in the qualifying round to draw AS Roma, FC Basel and Fulham in the group.

Although they managed a 1-1 draw with the Londoners, Sofia failed to gain any further points and finished bottom of their group to go out.