Shearer has crucial role on Newcastle's financial front-line

It remains a surprise and a frustration that Alan Shearer has never played club football in Europe's great arenas. He has not been seen at the Nou Camp, the Bernabeu nor San Siro and yesterday he celebrated his 32nd birthday.

With its rusted scoreboard and expanses of weary concrete, the Kosevo Stadium in Sarajevo, where Newcastle United's Champions' League qualifier with Zeljeznicar opens tonight, would not rate a mention in any guide to Europe's great football grounds. And yet for Shearer, Newcastle and the people of Sarajevo who wear the blue and white of Zeljeznicar this is a game of huge importance, financially and psychologically.

An explosion and a puff of smoke in the hills overlooking the stadium as Newcastle trained on a potholed pitch once used as a graveyard, was a reminder that this is still not a normal city, seven years after the lifting of its siege. Footballers, cocooned in hotels, are usually immune to their surroundings, but after a tour of the Bosnian capital Shearer said: "It is unbelievable. We are used to seeing things like this on television but to see it live is just amazing.

"The bomb craters, the bullet holes – some buildings have been left with no masonry – you just can't envisage it. I've never seen anything like it in my life. What these people have gone through is amazing. It makes you realise just how important this game of football is because it gives them a chance to figure on the European stage again."

The same can be said for Shearer. An Achilles injury cost him a place in Newcastle's previous Champions' League tilt which opened in September 1997 with a 3-2 victory over Barcelona and spluttered to a conclusion two months later in the Nou Camp, where 80,000 empty seats greeted the arrival of two already-eliminated teams.

Shearer had, of course, played his part in Blackburn's ultimately embarrassing entry into the European Cup in 1995, best remembered for Graeme Le Saux and David Batty fighting each other on the pitch in Moscow. Shearer has reflected that Blackburn's team resembled a house with foundations but no roof and his only goal came from a penalty.

Shearer put Blackburn's failure down to "inexperience in Europe" and "a difficult draw" although neither Rosenborg, Legia Warsaw nor Spartak Moscow counted among Europe's great powers. "It fizzled out, really, after we had worked so hard to win the league," Shearer reflected. "We do not want that this time; we have worked our socks off to get this far and it would be criminal to throw it away at this stage.

"The manager has told us not to underestimate the opposition but he didn't need to say it; there is too much at stake, not just for the players but the football club for financial reasons." Qualification for the Champions' League guarantees £15m, while a good run in the Uefa Cup, where the losers will end up, might net £5m.

"It is a game we have got to get through to play in one of the biggest competitions there is and which could be the pinnacle of my club career," said the Newcastle captain. "If we get people fit, we can progress [to the second group stage]. But there's a lot of ifs, and in football if is a big word. We haven't played a competitive game yet."

Newcastle's record in pre-season friendlies has not been convincing. Kieron Dyer complained that the team was horribly complacent when beaten 3-1 by Nottingham Forest, while the Spanish media were scathing in their criticism of the central defensive pairing of Nikos Dabizas and Titus Bramble when Barcelona won 3-0 at St James' Park last Wednesday.

This will be Zeljeznicar's seventh competitive match and their record in the Bosnian League, which for the first time contains clubs from Serb occupied zones, is just one point from two games, although they rested eight players for Saturday's 1-0 defeat to Ugljevik. Club officials have joked that if Newcastle can be persuaded to buy Zeljeznicar's striker, Almir Cosic, the players might be paid some of the wages they are owed.

The fact that the qualifier is being staged at the home of Zeljeznicar's bitter rivals, FC Sarajevo, because their stadium, the Grbavica, was deemed unfit by Uefa, will not dampen the ardour of their fans, dubbed the Maniacs, who enjoy a reputation for fierce partisanship. On the Tyne, that is an admired quality.

Zeljeznicar (probable, 4-4-2): Hasagic; Biscevic, Mulalic, Alihodzic, Mulaosmanovic; Karic, Gredic, Silic, Jahic; Guvo, Cosic.

Newcastle United (probable, 4-4-2): Given; Hughes, Bramble, Dabizas, Bernard; Solano, Dyer, Jenas, Viana; LuaLua, Shearer.