It will be with heart pounding and chest puffed out that Jon Daly will lead Dundee United out of the tunnel as European football finally returns to Tannadice.
Daly, handed the captaincy by manager Peter Houston in the summer in place of Rangers returnee Andy Webster, will skipper the Tangerines for the first time in a competitive game at home.
And what a game.
It is five years since United, for so long the pride of Scotland in continental competition, have hosted Euro opposition.
They now await the visit of slick Greek side AEK Athens, more accustomed to strutting their stuff in the Champions League than the Europa League play-off round.
The stadium will be packed, with all but 500 of the bumper crowd roaring on Peter Houston’s men, and it shall be an auspicious occasion for Daly, who before moving north plied his trade in the English lower leagues with the likes of Bury, Grimsby and Stockport before signing for United from Hartlepool in 2007.
So the big Irishman, already ensconced in fans’ folklore for his “put your hands up” celebrations, will be a willing wearer of the armband this evening.
“I will be bursting with pride and it is a great honour for me,” he said.
“To captain such a great club in our first European tie for five years is something special.
“It will be a big, big occasion for everyone, myself included.
“Not only will it be my first time skippering the team in Europe it will be the first time for me in a competitive game at Tannadice.
“So I am looking forward to it, to say the least.
“When I was at the likes of Stockport, Bury and Grimsby, this kind of stage seemed a long way away.
“You just never had the chance to play in Europe because, down in England, unless you are a top Premiership side you don’t get that opportunity.
“It will be a great experience and I am determined to make the most of it.
“It is going to be an enjoyable night and hopefully we get the right result.”
Getting that right result against a team that is used to top-class Euro competition will obviously be easier said than done.
But Daly believes that, by being in their faces, playing at speed and retaining possession, it can be achieved.
“We will have to play our normal game,” he added.
“We can’t give them too much time on the ball because if we do they have the ability to open you up.
“The footage we have seen of them shows them getting behind the ball when they lose it.
“That makes it difficult to break them down. We need to be patient and try to keep possession and make them work off the ball.
“United usually play a high-pressure game and I think that’s what we need to do pressurise them high up the park, try to force errors and then capitalise on them.
“It is not all about them, though, because we have good players all over the park.
“Craig Conway, David Goodwillie and the rest we can cause them problems.
“At the back we have some good, solid defenders who can keep them out.
“Then we have Dusan Pernis, who is a really good goalie. He doesn’t say an awful lot but he has done really well since joining us and he can be a key player.
“So I would say we are confident enough we can keep a clean sheet and then look to score a couple of goals as well.
“Of course, we have beaten quality teams like Rangers and Celtic here before but it will be a different game to those ones.
“It won’t be like an SPL match where it’s 100 miles an hour up and down the park.”
This glamour game has been the elephant in the room for United since the draw earlier this month, with it being difficult to ignore such an exciting prospect.
“All through the summer we had been thinking about who we were going to get and some of the big names that were in the draw,” added Daly.
“We had been guaranteed European football even before the Scottish Cup final so it has been a long time coming.
“Then when we saw the pot and then the draw itself it has been exciting.
“We had the start of the league campaign to take care of but now all the focus is on AEK.”
Daly will join manager Houston in giving the players a final warning regarding discipline before they take the field.
With card-happy Croat Marijo Strahonja the match official, it seems likely every rash challenge will be punished.
“It is going to be an exciting game and our lads will be up for it, but you can’t go flying in with the studs showing,” he said.
“So I will have a chat with the boys before the game, as will the manager, to say we can’t go into any stupid tackles.
“We also can’t afford to give away any silly free-kicks near our penalty box because they look dangerous from set-pieces.”