BALA Town step up their preparations for their Uefa Europa League tie against Swedish club AIK with a friendly against current Northern Ireland League Champions Crusaders this weekend.

The match will be held at Airbus UK Broughton’s 3G pitch at the Hollingsworth Group Stadium on Saturday (kick-off is 1.30pm) - on the same day as Wales face Northern Ireland in the last 16 of the European Championships in France.

Based in Belfast, the Crusaders are also in European competition in the next few weeks as they take on FC Copenhagen mid-July in the Champions League.

Stephen Baxter’s men from Belfast fly over on Saturday morning and return on Saturday night.

Their squad includes Michael Carvill, who spent a year at Wrexham.

Paul Heatley is one to watch, with over 120 appearances, having scored 22 goals last season - and their captain Colin Coates has been at the club since 2002.

Bala will be at full strength on Saturday with the management team likely to rotate the squad ahead of next week’s trip to Sweden.

Bala’s first friendly against Llandudno was moved forward to last Tuesday night, and resulted in a 2-2 with their fellow Euro qualifiers.Bala had new signing Stuart Jones in the centre of defence, and gave starts to two promising trialists and two players from the Under 19s.

Bala took the lead midway through he first half as Mike Hayes’ run enabled Lee Hunt to tap in at the far post.

The lead only lasted two minutes, however, as Jamie Reed levelled from a good team move, and this status quo remained at half time.

The second half saw both teams make a number of changes to personnel and Llandudno then took the lead through Lewis Buckley.

The visitors then contrived to miss a number of clear cut chances to equalise, before Lee Hunt brought them level from the penalty spot late in the game to secure the draw.

Meanwhile the Swedish leg of Bala’s Europa League tie will take place on Thursday, 30 June, with the home leg set to be played at Rhyl on Thursday, 7 July, with a 6.30pm kick-off.

For home and neutral supporters, tickets will be available to buy at the Rhyl Club Shop on the day only.

The Corbett Sports Belle Vue Stadium holds 3,000 supporters so there will plenty of tickets available, and will be priced at £10 for adults and £5 for concessions and Under 16s.

The winners of the tie will go on to meet FC Pyunik (Armenia) or Europa FC (Gibraltar) in the second qualifying round.