SOCCER/BATE Borisov v Bohemians: A week ago Bohemians manager Stephen Kenny sat in the restaurant of Minsk's best hotel drawing baffled looks as he ordered everything he could persuade the waiting staff to pile onto a table for one, writes Emmet Malone in Belarus.

Such is the level of preparation which clubs contesting these early qualifying rounds of the Champions League can afford to treat themselves to that yesterday he was back there instructing his bemused squad in the ways of Belarussian cuisine.

The players had already familiarised themselves with Belarussian customs. On Monday, the league champions had avoided the anticipated disruption in Dublin and Shannon over the reorganisation of the airports' management.

At their destination, however, there was no avoiding having to pay for visas the club reckoned it had already stumped up for last week. After three hours of wrangling, Kenny and co admitted defeat, paid up again and resolved that the last laugh on this flying visit to Eastern Europe would be theirs. The odds are, at first glance, against it.

Bohemians came here in 1997 and were unfortunate to lose against a decent Dinamo Minsk on away goals. Six years later they are aiming to do better in Borisov, home of their opponents BATE, who have, from their base 70 km outside the capital, rapidly emerged as a growing power in the region.

Eastern Europe has been the source of particular anguish for Irish clubs down the years, with teams, whose technical ability is matched only by their complete lack of drawing power and their inability to attract a red cent in television revenue, inflicting a succession of painful defeats on eircom League sides. Two years ago, under Pete Mahon, Bohemians bucked the trend when they beat Leviada Maardu of Estonia, and Kenny is under no illusions about how important it is for his team to repeat the trick in a tie which he hopes will be decided in Dublin next week rather than Borisov this evening.

"Of course it's important to us," says the former Longford Town boss. "But I think we have to be careful that we approach it in our own way, because if we play the way we know we can then I'd be confident that we can take something out of this game.

"A lot of teams would play 4-5-1 in this sort of situation, but to be honest that's not what we're familiar with so I think we'll be more positive than that. Of course we'll make minor alterations within the overall game plan to take account of their strengths, but there will be a strong element of looking to play our own game."

Central defence, he admits, is a source of some concern, with Colin Hawkins unlikely to be fit to start while Jason McGuinness and Ken Oman are both terribly short of experience at this level.

"To play them together would be a gamble," says Kenny, "but Thomas Heary has shown that he can play there too. He's been very impressive since he arrived at the club and this could be just the opportunity he's been waiting for."

He has, he says, considerable respect for the locals, whom he saw beat Dinamo Brest last week. Despite lying fourth they are the league's top scorers, and Kenny was struck by the way in which the whole team is geared towards getting forward.

"They have guys that can play in every area of the pitch and they all like to attack, that's going to mean a hard night for us, particularly for Kevin Hunt and Stephen Caffrey in the centre. But they have it in them, I have no doubts about that."

BATE, he knows, are just the sort of club that Irish sides have good cause to be wary of. Under coach Yuri Puntos, who took over in 1996, and with funds provided by a local business community that has emerged from obscurity as quickly as the team itself, the club has risen from the Belarussian third division to twice win the country's premier league.

Puntos has put together a young, talented side - eight of the 14 players involved in the recent 2-0 defeat of Torpedo Moscow are 22 or under, and 12 of the squad have played in the national under-21 side, also coached by Puntos, while another two have been capped at senior level.

Adding experience to the panel are a handful of players like attacking midfielder Igor Chumachenko (a key figure this evening, says Kenny), right-sided defender Vitali Rahozhkin and Valery Strypeikis, the leading goalscorer in Belarussian league history, all of whom have played in Europe before and performed solidly at the higher level.

Fourteen games into this season's championship BATE have, like Bohemians, struggled to achieve the sort of consistency which won them the title last season, but they had managed 24 goals (they do concede a few too, though) in seven league outings. It was that sort of form that prompted the club to start preparing last week to switch the visit of Rosenborg in the next round to the Dinamo stadium in Minsk.

It wasn't the first signal the club expects to progress at the expense of their Irish opponents, and BATE's officials know better than most what is at stake. Aside from prize money that goes that little bit further in the under-developed economy of Belarus, there is the opportunity to display their young talent for potential buyers in the later qualifying stages.