UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE THIRD QUALIFYING ROUND, FIRST LEG:A LITTLE like their visitors tonight, Shamrock Rovers are hoping the next few years will be better than the last few and it would be hard to imagine anything that would signal the readiness of Michael O'Neill's young team to build on all the groundwork done to date in Tallaght quite like putting one over on Juventus in the Europa League.
The Northerner yesterday described the clash with the Italian giants as a “no lose” game which his colleagues up at Dundalk might advise him may not actually be the case. Barring a disaster on a scale endured by the Oriel Park outfit against Levski Sofia, however, it is hard to imagine the Dubliners coming out of their games with the 27-times Serie A champions too badly. The somewhat trickier bit is coming out of them genuinely ahead.
The club faces the standard quandary of Irish clubs drawn against what should on paper be much better opposition in Europe, with the need to avoid a hefty defeat having to be balanced with the fear of surrendering any hope of progression due to a fatal lack of ambition.
As he weighed up his side’s prospects yesterday, the worst-case scenario clearly didn’t loom terribly large in O’Neill’s thoughts with striking the right balance between the desire to grab a goal tonight and the need not to give one away more to the forefront of his calculations.
“The longer the game stays 0-0, the longer the tie is very much alive,” he insisted. “At some point, obviously, to come through, we know that we have to score and our best chance of doing that is probably here in Tallaght.
“But if you look at European football now, the idea that you have to score at home no longer exists. The main priority is not to lose a goal at home. And obviously we’ll be doing our utmost to make sure that we don’t. We did against (Bnei) Yehuda which left us having to go out there and score. Thankfully we were good enough to do that but I would anticipate that it would be a little more difficult against Juventus.”
Currently top of the league here at home where they are aiming for a first league title since 1994, Rovers showed a great deal of character last week in Israel where they frustrated their opponents for long periods then clinically exploited a key weakness – their goalkeeper’s willingness to commit himself rashly to high balls he stood little chance of winning. But the possible routes to success against the Italians seem rather more obscure.
A handful of Luigi Delneri’s better known players seem unlikely to feature but the quality of some of those who almost certainly will is beyond question and there is little rational basis to expect an upset other than the traditional would-be banana skins of over-confidence and pre-season rustiness.
Yet O’Neill and his players quietly insist they can make this a night to remember for supporters whose loyalty over the past two decades would certainly merit a win if such things really decided anything.
Even, as he claims, that the pressure is off his men since beating Yehuda, O’Neill maintains there is a determination to get a result this evening that would leave the team with everything to play for on the road again.
“We’ll have to be a little more cautious than we were two weeks ago because if we get too comfortable this time the way we did then, Juventus will punish us. A lot will depend, though, on our ability to get the ball into their area, whether it’s from set-pieces or play.
“And in Europe it’s crucial, too, how you’re set up when the ball changes hands and so we’ll have to be careful, but this is a great opportunity for my players, many of whom have had to cope with disappointments in the early part of their careers and I have every faith in them.”
Thomas Stewart, having scored the goal that earned his side a clash with the club he supported as a kid, insists it would be a mistake to write his side off in the way many did after they conceded a goal at home two weeks ago.
“Yeah, they were my team growing up,” he said with a laugh. “Obviously Football Italia was something I watched. Their’s was the first kit I ever had.
“We all know how difficult it is going to be now, though. Bnei kept the ball very well and Juventus will do the same but they’re only starting their season. If we can frustrate them, play at the tempo we know we can play at, then with the home fans behind us, you never know.”
Probable teams
SHAMROCK ROVERS:Mannus; Sives, Price, Murray, Stevens; Chambers, Rice, Turner, Bayly, Stewart; Twigg.
JUVENTUS:Storari; Motta, Bonucci, Chiellini, de Cegline; Lanzafame, Sissoko, Marchisio, Pepe; Amauri, Diego.
Tonight, kick-off 7.45pm, Tallaght Stadium, Live on RTÉ Two
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