St Patrick's forced behind closed doors

THEY BROUGHT just three fans to the Russian city of Samara this week, but St Patrick’s Athletic are set to have none at all when they travel to Bucharest to play Steaua for the away leg of their Europa Cup play-off in a couple of weeks.

The Romanians must play their next two European games behind closed doors as a result of disturbances and the use of fireworks during their second qualifying round home game against Ujpest of Hungary.

The upshot is that followers of the Dublin club who skipped the trip to Malta and then couldn’t afford the midweek trip to Russia will have to hope Jeff Kenna’s side make history by providing the opportunity for some away days in the group stages.

“It’s a major disappointment for all the supporters who would have wanted to travel with us,” says club chief executive Richard Sadlier, “but the flipside is that we won’t have thousands of Steaua fans screaming at us either, which should help our chances.”

The draw is a tough one for the Dubliners, and Sadlier has yet to work out what size of windfall it might provide, but he reckons it could have been worse.

“Basically, with these things you look at it in terms of what chance you have going through and whether you are going to make much money. The two rarely go together.

“Before the draw we were put into a group of 10 with us one of the five unseeded teams. We knew from that point that we might get Aston Villa, which would have been attractive from a financial point of view, but my preference from a sporting viewpoint would have been the Danes (Odense), as they probably would have given us the best chance of progressing.

“I’m no expert on what Romanian TV pays, we’ll just have to wait and see what offers come in, but my guess would be that Steaua will be somewhere in between on all fronts.”

The Romanians eliminated Shelbourne from the Champions League in 2005 when, after a scoreless first leg, they won at home 4-1. This time, Kenna’s men will have the slight competitive advantage of playing away first (Dinamo Bucharest were also drawn at home, but their game has since been switched) on August 20th, although a similarly hefty defeat would seriously undermine the Irish club’s chances of making a major profit on the second leg a week later.

The latter game is almost certain to be played at the RDS as Richmond Park does not meet Uefa’s requirements for this stage of the competition.

Talks about using the Ballsbridge venue began several weeks ago and are said to have progressed, although no formal agreement has been reached.

Steaua beat Motherwell 6-1 on aggregate to reach this stage of the competition, and despite having had their problems over the past couple of years – a bribery scandal in 2007/08 and a sixth-place finish in the league last year – they will start as firm favourites.

Indeed, of the 76 teams in yesterday’s draw, the Romanians were ranked 11th, the Irish 70th.

Sadlier said: “We know we will be massive underdogs, just as we were last night (Thursday) and in Valletta too. We knew the possible options ahead of the draw, but no matter who we were drawn to play it was going to be tough.

“But we’ve nearly two weeks to go before we play them and we’ll do our homework.”

One of the St Patrick’s players likely to feature in Bucharest, Stuart Byrne, was there three years ago with Shelbourne, and the midfielder insists that confidence will be a major factor over the weeks ahead.

“It only seems like yesterday since I played against them,” said Byrne. “They are a good side, although it will be behind closed doors, and we will be going up another level. But I can’t imagine they would be that much better than what we have just played.

“Anyway, we can’t dismiss our own chances after us getting this far. We have got this far and it’s only one more round to get through to the group stages.

“St Pat’s had this last year and maybe looking back they might say if they had a bit more belief, especially in the game at the RDS, they could have done it.”