AS debut matches go, Brendan Rodgers’ first competitive game in charge of Liverpool represents something of a journey into the unknown. FC Gomel will be the opponents, as the Reds make their first ever trip to Belarus on Thursday evening.

The third qualifying round of the Europa League is hardly the most glamorous of stages. Certainly, it is not where Liverpool fans envisioned they would be as they started in such impressive fashion under Kenny Dalglish last season.

For Rodgers, however, it is the first baby step as he looks to move the club back towards the elite, both at home and abroad. Prestigious it may not be, tucked away in south east Belarus, just 130km north of the site of Chernobyl, but its importance should not be underestimated.

After a summer enjoying the sun, and the adulation, of the Reds’ tour to Canada and the USA, the setting for Rodgers’ competitive bow will be the decidedly more austere surroundings of Gomel’s Central Stadium, against the fifth most successful club in Belarussian football.

Despite holding just 14,307 supporters (Liverpool’s allocation for the game will be around 300), it is the second-largest stadium in the Belarussian Premier League, behind only the Dinamo Stadium in Minsk, where Belarus’ national team, play their home games.

For FC Gomel, its residents, this tie represents arguably the biggest fixture in the club’s recent history. Formed in 1959, originally under the name Lokomotiv Gomel, they spent the first three decades of their existence scratching around the lower divisions of the former Soviet Union. Relegation to the fourth tier, in 1990, was their lowest ebb.

Two years later the Belarusian Premier League, like its English equivalent, was formed. Gomel were founder members, though they traditionally lagged behind the powerful Dinamo Minsk, who won six of the first seven Belarus titles.

Gomel struggled, finishing bottom in their maiden campaign. They were saved from relegation only by the Belarussian FA’s desire to expand the league.

They would eventually succumb, dropping down to the second division in 1995. They would spend three seasons in the wilderness, before returning to the top flight in 1998.

Once back, the more stable, well-run club began to establish themselves as one of the country’s better sides. They finished fifth in their first season back, and third in 1999.

A Belarussian Cup win followed in 2002, the club’s first major honour, and a year later they were league champions, fired to their first, and so far only, title by the goals of Gennadi Bliznyuk.

That side also managed to reach the first round proper of the UEFA Cup, though it was well beaten by German side Schalke over two legs once it got there.

Gomel’s only Champions League campaign to date ended in defeat to KF Tirana of Albania at the first qualifying hurdle, as decline set in amongst the title-winning side. They finished second to BATE Borisov in 2007, but were relegated again in 2009 – though they would bounce back, securing promotion at the first attempt.

Since then, consolidation has been the name of the game. Gomel may be Belarus’ second-largest city, and one of its most historic, but its football club cannot compete with the history of Dinamo Minsk, or the backing of BATE, who have won the last six titles and became the first Belarus side to reach the Champions League group stages in 2008.

The current side, managed by Oleg Kubarev, is made up almost entirely of home-grown players – though midfielder Tomasz Nowak has been capped by Poland – two of whom, Ihar Kuzmyanok and Illya Aleksiyevich, have been representing their country at the Olympic Games in London over the past fortnight.

Gomel secured their glamour-tie by defeating Vikingur of the Faroe Islands, and then overcoming Macedonian side Renova.

It promises to be a struggle for the Reds – and the smattering of Liverpool fans who will make the trip – but life at Anfield is never meant to be easy. Rodgers knows that better than most, as he prepares for his baptism.