Brighton made an early statement as favourites to win the Conference League, with a comfortable 4-0 triumph against Lithuanian champions Kauno Zalgiris.
Georginio Rutter scored a brace, while Jack Hinshelwood returned to action from injury with a goal of his own, assisted by the Frenchman, before Matt O'Riley ended his Brighton drought.
Here is how the action unfurled on ESPN.
Fabian Hürzeler's men have started the 2026-27 season in sublime form, winning four of their opening six matches to sit third in the Premier League table.
Inspired by the indefatigable Pascal Gross, Brighton returned to European football in style, entering a UEFA competition for only the second time in their history.
The first, which came during the 2023-24 season in the Europa League, saw them bow out in the round of 16 stage to Italian giants Roma.
Before that, though, they had overcome the likes of AEK Athens, Marseille and Dutch giants Ajax (twice) in what was a memorable first ever campaign in Europe.
Now, they are looking to continue the Premier League's stranglehold on the Conference League -- with three of the competition's five winners-- West Ham, Chelsea and Crystal Palace -- coming from England.
Their opponents on Thursday night were formed only 22 years ago, when they were initially called FM Sypris.
After eight seasons, they were promoted from the third tier in Lithuania to the second and two years later were again promoted to the TOPLYGA in 2015.
In 2025, they finally landed their first TOPLYGA title, after finishing in the top three in five of the previous six seasons.
They have been in qualifying rounds of the Europa League and the Conference League previously and even found themselves in the third qualifying round of the Champions League this year, before a loss to Dinamo Zagreb and a Europa League playoff loss to Besiktas saw them slot into the Conference League.