Town's UEFA Cup opponents Avenir Beggen's main aim at Portman Road on Thursday night will be to keep the score down according to their keeper Kevin Hartert.

The Beggen squad arrived at Portman Road on Wednesday evening and trained on the Portman Road pitch as they acclimatised themselves to surroundings very different to those that they are used to.

Hartert, a sports student in Germany, says the game is special for his side: "It's an honour for me to be here. It's very special to play against a professional team and for us tomorrow it is a dream for us to play against an English team.

"We are used to playing in front of 300-400 people and perhaps tomorrow we will play in front of probably 15-20,000 which is something unknown for us.

"So we will enjoy the match and hope to have a good game and hope to lose by too many! That is our goal."

Tactically they will play the game the same as they did in Luxembourg, aiming to stifle and frustrate Town, something they did fairly successfully in their home leg.

Hartert says Town hardly made it difficult for his side to defend at the Stade Josy Barthel two weeks ago: "For me I felt Ipswich made it very easy for us. They played with long balls and it was very easy for our defence.

"We played at 120% and played our best game of the year which was because of our extra motivation and we hope to make this game the same as the last one."

From his own perspective he felt the first game went well but is concerned that Town may get an early goal on Thursday: "It was a very good game for a goalkeeper in Luxembourg, but tomorrow, perhaps after five minutes they score, and then it will be a different game from the one two weeks ago. The match two weeks ago was very good for me personally."

"I think tomorrow they will play a bit cleverer than they did in the first game which will give us some problems. They are technically and physically stronger than we are, so we'll have more problems than two weeks ago."

The 23-year-old former U21 international revealed that he was named after an English footballing hero: "I got the name Kevin because of Kevin Keegan. My father, Robert, is a great fan of Hamburg and Kevin Keegan played at Hamburg and that is how I got the name Kevin. So that makes me a little bit English!"

Last weekend saw Beggen's first league game of the season when they disappointingly drew with Mondercange and Hartert feels that his team may have had their minds on other things: "We drew 2-2 at the weekend and it was not a very good game for us. If we play like that tomorrow we'll let in eight or nine!

"Our minds were perhaps on the game tomorrow. We'll be happy when this adventure is over so we can concentrate on the championship which is more important than this.

"This is something very special but for us the championship is most important and when the game tomorrow is over we can concentrate 100% on that."

Not a million miles from Town's view of the UEFA Cup this season.

Photo: Action Images

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