Fulham will be on the team coach heading for the Midlands and Saturday's Premiership visit to West Bromwich Albion when the draw for the UEFA Cup is made at 1pm on Friday.
The UEFA Cup place is the reward for Fulham's first-ever European success which came when they destroyed Italians Bologna 3-0 in the second leg of the final in their temporary home at Queens Park Rangers' Loftus Road on Tuesday night.
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Fulham Assistant manager
Christian Damiano |
But assistant manager Christian Damiano is confident they have the resources not to suffer the fate of Ipswich Town, whose good run in the competition last season was combined with the bitter taste of relegation from the top flight.
The much-criticised Intertoto has provided Fulham with a flying start to the season in which they have picked up four points from their opening two matches, following up the 4-1 opening day hammering of Bolton by wiping out a two-goal deficit to secure a 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough.
They aim to stretch their unbeaten run to three matches at West Brom and Damiano said: "When you do something like this and are winning you improve in confidence.
"This has been a great event to start the championship and it has enabled the players to improve in confidence. They think they are able to go further and will take more of a risk.
"When you have seven official games before the start of the league season it helps change the minds of the players compared to having friendly games. For 16 or 18 players it has been very interesting to arrive at in the new season so quickly."
Damiano admits "I don't know what happened to Ipswich last season," but he believes that, after making five summer signings - one of them, Japanese World Cup star Junichi Inamoto scored all three goals in the midweek victory over Bolgona - that Fulham have the resources to cope.
He accepts that after such a hectic start to the campaign tiredness might kick in around November, but said: "We have the players in just about all positions that if we need to rest someone for one or two games then we can do that.
"We have a squad that has more quality this year. If you do well in the cups you can have around 55 games and there are about 10 games for the national teams so there can be maybe 65 games in nine and a half months for the top players and that is very difficult but this season we have more possibilities to manage the group."
He is not bothered who Fulham draw in the UEFA Cup first round. "We will be on the bus to Birmingham and we will be waiting on the phone. The important thing for the club is that we make it to the next round," he added.