Mason, who grew up in Spain and owns a real estate company on the country’s south coast, had contacts in La Liga and helped secure former Atletico Madrid, Real Betis and Malaga striker Lucas Cazorla Luque to manage the side at the start of last season.Luque did not have much of a grasp of English, let alone Welsh, but that was no problem when a troupe of his countrymen including Efren Fernandez, Ivan Nofuentes, Jacob Mingorance and Rudy Torres began arriving.Torres, a huge hit, was duly snapped up by Hamilton Academicals but Nofuentes, who had appeared for Motril and Nilanova in La Liga’s lower reaches scored freely in Luque’s attacking system.Creating a Spanish enclave amid the likes of Connah’s Quay Nomads and Haverfordwest County was not quite as easy as it sounded. “We wanted flair: the sort of style which would bring people through the turnstiles.”Within weeks, a veritable Spanish Armada was heading up the Burry estuary. Instead, salvation came in the more sedentary figure of Nitin Parekh, a Swiss-based British entrepreneur with a background in financial services, whose investment company, Jesco, took a controlling share at the club’s Stebonheath Park in June 2005.Parekh immediately took the club full-time, like the Welsh Premier League champions, TNS, and is arguably the first club proprietor to pick out a foreign nation on which to model his side.”I sat down with one of my directors [Carlo Mason, a former European Tour golf professional] and we thought about what sort of football we wanted to play,” he said. The odds are not exactly with them – some bookies have Odense at 1-5 to make it through – yet the same could have been said of Llanelli’s very existence, two years ago, when they found themselves second bottom of the Welsh National League and facing extinction.
At that time, some highly far-fetched stories about the club were flying around, among them the suggestion that Catherine Zeta-Jones might save the day since it was her uncle, a Swansea car dealer, who was selling up for £350,000. In the same red jerseys as their rugby-playing brethren but without the faintest strain of sosban fach behind them, the association footballers of Llanelli will face Odense, a side managed by the former Scotland captain Bruce Rioch, in the second qualifying round of the Uefa Cup. Llanelli can be forgiven for a rather one-eyed outlook on Europe, considering that its annual forays into Continental territory are generally limited to autumn days in France and Italy when the Scarlets are challenging for the Heineken Cup.

But the highly improbable proposition of Denmark in early August will materialise tonight, as the South Wales estuary town embarks on the latest chapter of an adventure which, even by its own illustrious sporting standards, has been extraordinary. Cyprus is expected to be announced as the new venue tomorrow.. “We can still dream of taking something from the second leg but we would have a much better chance if the game was in Tel Aviv,” said Haifa manager Roni Levi. Substitutes not used: Doyle, Martin Taylor.Referee: G Salisbury (Lancashire).. Liverpool edged towards a successful resolution in their pursuit of Feyenoord’s coveted striker Dirk Kuyt and Champions’ League football last night; patience and persistence proving essential as Rafael Benitez closed in on his two remaining objectives for the summer. An 88th-minute goal from Mark Gonzalez, three minutes after he ventured on to the Anfield pitch for the first time following a protracted move from Albacete, gave the 2005 champions a slender victory over Maccabi Haifa in a third qualifying round first leg that appeared set to give Liverpool more problems than where to play the second leg.Uefa’s decision to switch the tie to a neutral venue prompted the Israeli support to unfurl a banner that re-christened their hosts “Chicken-Pool”, and their frustration at losing home advantage intensified following a performance that stretched Liverpool’s composure and resources to the limit.

Substitutes not used: Ward, Wright, Smith.Birmingham City (4-4-2): Maik Taylor; Kelly, Tebily, N’Gotty, Sadler; Johnson, Muamba (Clemence, 71), Nafti (Danns, 84), Larsson; Bendtner, Forssell (Dunn, 67). All three started at the Stadium of Light and in the midfielder Fabrice Muamba, the winger Sebastian Larsson and the striker Bendtner, it appears City have recruited wisely.Sunderland (4-4-2): Alnwick; Delap, Caldwell (Clarke, 30), Cunningham, D Collins; Miller, Whitehead, Leadbitter, Lawrence (Stead, 74); Elliott, Murphy. Quinn has completed a deal for the Barcelona playmaker Arnau Riera but further signings are expected this week.Steve Bruce, the Birmingham manager, is also keen to strengthen a squad which dealt with this first away test of the season in some style. City barely looked like surrendering their lead and had the Arsenal loanee Nicklas Bendtner converted from close range in the closing stages Sunderland could have had few complaints.”When you think Nicklas is only 18 he is a very exciting prospect,” said Bruce, who has stolen a march on many of his ambitious rivals by recruiting a trio of Arsenal’s most outstanding youngsters. “I’m convinced that in a different atmosphere, when we go on the run which I’m sure is just around the corner, we’ll see things really take off here.”Mikael Forssell, the robust Birmingham striker, provided the cool finish when City were awarded a 40th-minute penalty after the Sunderland full-back Clive Clarke’s rash foul on the midfielder Damien Johnson.

The composed Finn is exactly the type of predatory finisher Quinn requires if his team is to challenge for promotion.”I’ve got to convince two or three Premiership players to come up here and give us a chance,” said the man hoping to revive a club in decline. Two successive defeats to open the season suggest there will be little respite for the former Black Cats favourite and his slowly evolving squad.
“Things have been a little bit difficult for us but I don’t think this task is too tough,” said a defiant Quinn, despite his team’s largely uninspiring performance against a Birmingham City side which, like Sunderland, found last season’s Premiership opponents too hot to handle. Niall Quinn’s dual appointment as chairman and manager was always going to test the mettle of an individual with experience in neither role and the former Republic of Ireland international has been given little time to find his feet as Sunderland’s all-controlling figurehead. Nobody said it was going to be easy and for the newly crowned saviour of a North-east footballing institution this defeat against a well-drilled side confirmed that charisma alone will not be enough to inspire the confidence and style necessary to mount a promotion campaign.

“We struggled to get Gary into the game,” Adams admitted.Southampton (4-1-3-2): Davis; Ostlund, Baird, Pele, Bale (Cranie, 90); Viafara; Belmadi, Wright, Skacel; Wright-Phillips (Jones, 82), Rasiak. Substitutes not used: Poke (gk), Dyer, Surman.Coventry City (4-4-2): Marshall; McNamee, Heath, Ward, Hall; Birchall (Virgo, 68), Hughes, Doyle, McSheffrey (Hutchison, 73); Adebola (Cameron, 73), John Substitutes not used: Tabb, Thornton Referee: G Hegley (Hertfordshire).. They did so with little help from Gary McSheffrey, the man very much in demand – from Birmingham City – who was eventually substituted. Coventry’s goalkeeper Andy Marshall was left helpless by Bale’s 61st-minute effort which went in off an upright.Coventry hardly deserved to lose, let alone by a two-goal margin which might have been three had Kenwyne Jones not bent a shot on to a post soon after coming on.Dele Adebola’s header which rebounded from an upright was the best of Coventry’s efforts in the first half, which they dominated. “Technically he’s very good in that type of situation,” said the Southampton manager, George Burley, referring to Bale’s knack of scoring with free-kicks. “If he was a boxer and he went down that easily, the promoter wouldn’t have given him his purse,” said Micky Adams after seeing his Sky Blues succumb to the club he once graced.
The furore over the penalty took the spotlight away from Gareth Bale, the scorer of Southampton’s first goal which was, in fact, the second of the campaign for the 17-year-old Wales full-back.The way he is going, Bale’s reputation this term will be enhanced as a marksman. As the teams left the pitch at St Mary’s last night their assistant manager, Adrian Heath, had to be restrained from a confrontation with Grzegorz Rasiak, the Pole whose 85th-minute penalty completed Southampton’s victory.