Uefa Conference League: Shelbourne v Crystal Palace, Thursday, 8pm – Live on Premier Sports 1 & TNT Sports 3
In Joey O’Brien’s eyes, it’s a sign of a wasted career if you have somehow managed to saunter through the rigmarole of it all without embracing this sort of pressure.
It’s why that aspect of Thursday night’s daunting task against Crystal Palace doesn’t faze him in the slightest, even if few will give his Shelbourne team a hope against the side sitting fourth in the English Premier League.
“It’s not words the lads will ever hear me speak about – fear in football. It’s not pressure, it’s an absolute privilege to be in this situation,” said the former Republic of Ireland international.
“I read a story about a chap over in Gaza going to look for food for his family, wondering whether he would come back with enough food for his family, or if his family was still going to be alive. That’s pressure.
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“This, for me, isn’t pressure. It’s a great opportunity for us as a football club and for the lads, to go out in front of a sold-out crowd and show how good they are and that they belong on the pitch.”
Shelbourne’s path in this Conference League league phase has been laced with near misses and lessons of tough love, having come out the wrong side of results even if performances have been decent.
With just one point banked from their four games – and yet to score in any of those matches – Shels need to beat Palace and follow up with another win against in-form Slovenian side Celje to stand any chance of reaching the next round.
It’s the tallest of orders and good reason why they are 18-1 outsiders on Thursday night at Tallaght Stadium. Crystal Palace will be backed by 1,800 travelling fans for a game their manager, Oliver Glasner, billed as a “UK derby” on Wednesday.
Palace, who are without Ismaila Sarr, Jean-Philippe Mateta and Daniel Muñoz, continue to go from strength-to-strength under their Austrian manager, who once played in Ireland for his Under-21 national team. Glasner steered the Londoners to FA Cup success last season, the first major trophy in the club’s 120-year existence.
Approaching the halfway point in the Premier League campaign, they are seven points off leaders Arsenal and on track to build on last season’s 12th-place finish. Safe to say, they are not the club O’Brien used to know.
On Wednesday, he recalled how his former manager at West Ham United, Sam Allardyce, tore strips off him the last time he played against Palace. O’Brien’s lapse in concentration handed the Eagles victory in a December, 2013 London derby at Selhurst Park.
The Irishman was a defender in the Hammers side that day and was tasked with marking striker Marouane Chamakh at corners.
The pair wrestled on the edge of the box for one particular delivery but O’Brien then lost sight of Chamakh when the ball was whipped in. While the danger was initially cleared, Chamakh was left all alone to head home the only goal of the game from the subsequent cross back into the box.
At the time, Allardyce fumed: “I haven’t got the words for it. When everybody has a marker and the ball comes in from the corner, you still have your marker, you don’t lose your marker but we did. That lost us the game effectively. It’s all our fault today.”
All these years later, it was still fresh in O’Brien’s mind as the Shelbourne manager brought up the incident unprompted.
“I was at fault and the manager nearly had a heart attack at half-time, so hopefully that doesn’t happen to me. That one sticks in the memory because I was more concerned about him not having a heart attack going mad at me than the outcome of the game.”
Be it missed chances in front of goal, or the first-half red card at home to Drita, or the unfortunate own goal late in the game in North Macedonia, Shelbourne have been guilty of self sabotage on this European run.
Recalling that Allardyce yarn, O’Brien was stressing how quickfire lapses in concentration can result in game plans unravelling at pace. Best laid plans and all that.
O’Brien, who is without the suspended James Norris, said: “We’re so lucky to be in this position as professional footballers, being involved in these games and getting opportunities like this.
“They’ve had some incredible stories to get to this game; last year in Derry to win the league, the Cup final and tonight. People talk about this as a pressure game. For me, it’s not. If you never get a pressure moment in a game, you look back and think ‘what a waste of a career’.”
