DEREK McINNES has backed his men to overcome the hostile atmosphere of Maribor that has been the scourge of Scottish teams in recent years as Aberdeen prepare for their Europa League showdown tomorrow.
The Pittodrie team must score in Maribor's Stadion Ljudski vrt in their bid to reach the play-off stage after a 1-1 home leg draw at Pittodrie.
But Hibs, Rangers and Celtic have suffered blows at the hands of the Slovenians and Maribor are favourites to add Aberdeen to their list.
Striker Adam Rooney has already warned his team mates to brace themselves for a tasty atmosphere, having played there earlier in his career with Birmingham City in the same competition.
Aberdeen boast a decent away record in Europe recently having won in Holland, Croatia and twice in Latvia in the past couple of years.
And McInnes is confident his side can score in Slovenia in a match likely to be played in testing humid conditions.
"I've watched footage of Maribor's home games and they have a magnificent crowd" McInnes said. "For less than 13,000 people they make a lot of noise and I can't wait to experience that and it's the same with the players. The atmosphere will be brilliant and I only see that as a positive. Players prefer performing in packed stadiums where fans are in great voice.
"They would rather that than play in a place like the stadium in Luxembourg where we played Fola Esch, where the fans were in smaller numbers and also well back from the pitch. It will feel more like a proper, big European occasion on Thursday. We have experienced these things before and proved we can handle them.
"We will never play in conditions warmer than they were in Croatia last season. It was hot when we played in Kazakhstan, too, but it was ridiculously hot for the match against Rijeka.
"We are anticipating it being very warm for the players again on Thursday. But they handled that problem well out in Croatia and we are sure it will be the same when we are in Slovenia too."
McInnes took Maribor by surprise by using both Adam Rooney and Jayden Stockley up front in the first leg in a change from his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. And he's hinted he could spring another surprise tomorrow.
"We mixed our game up well in the first match and are capable of doing that again," McInnes added. "There were times when we took a more direct route and others when we were more patient and worked round about them.
"I was pleased with the quality and sharpness of some of our passing and the fact we managed to put so many crosses into their box. That meant we had plenty of efforts on goal and caused them lots of problems in their own penalty box.
"There are many ways in which you can achieve that but our aim will be to have ourselves set up to do something similar to what we achieved at Pittodrie. The good thing is Maribor will remember how we rattled them last Thursday. They will go into the second game knowing we can get at them and cause them problems.
"They will be attack-minded, that's just the way they play, but not as much as at home. I'm certain they won't play with two guys up front."
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