When chairman Dave Cormack took the Aberdeen reigns from Stewart Milne in 2019, one of his stated aims was to make them one of Europe's top 100 clubs.
HJK - although Finnish champions in 11 of the last 14 seasons - brought in £2m less than Aberdeen last term despite lifting the league title again.The usual talk of opposition budgets dwarfing Scottish clubs does not apply here, as it did when Aberdeen opened their Conference League campaign with a creditable 2-1 defeat away to Eintracht Frankfurt.
It is the only loss in their past seven games and they have scored in each of their last 12 matches, while Aberdeen have only kept two clean sheets in the same number of games. It is also HJK's third straight season playing in the group stages of European competition. Last season, they got one point in a Europa League group with Roma, Real Betis and Ludogorets Razgrad of Bulgaria.
That makes it all the more important for Aberdeen to use home advantage before the trip to Finland at the end of November.