O'Neill enjoying the adventure

SOCCER:FOR REGULAR and richer members of European football's elite, the Europa League is sometimes regarded as something of a sideshow and the atmosphere as the draw for the group stages was made at the Grimaldi Centre in Monaco yesterday was certainly rather less tense than it had been the previous day for the Champions League draw.

Some of the clubs represented in the hall were still coming to terms with the implications of having been eliminated from the rather more glamorous competition but for Shamrock Rovers getting this far has been a remarkable achievement and, the club’s supporters will hope, a stepping stone towards even greater things.

Some might even hope that the team can make some sort of impact this time around but Michael O’Neill was anxious to see participation in the group stages as success in itself.

“We have to be realistic, to get this far has been fantastic and we’ve enjoyed the adventure,” he said, describing Thursday’s tremendous away win over Partizan Belgrade as the best night of his career in management so far.

“We’ve no real avenue to improve the squad as the transfer window shuts at the end of August and the only players we can sign are free agents. We could do with one or two bodies more given the workload but not many of those would be of the quality we’d be looking for. Anyway, the current squad got us this far in the League, the FAI Cup and Europe, so hopefully we can keep it intact.”

The Rovers boss seemed happy with the line-up of opponents for his side. He was unperturbed by a schedule that means that rather than enjoying an advantage over sides that are out of season when they play in qualifying rounds, as Irish clubs often have in recent years, they will themselves be out of season for their closing group games in November and December.

“To get a team like Spurs is fantastic, hopefully we’ll bring them to Tallaght,” he said. “From a travel point of view, Rubin Kazan gave me most concern, but we don’t have to go there until the domestic season is over so it won’t impact on domestic fixtures.

“Salonika is not that difficult to get to. Against a team like that we can do well, and against Kazan too. Spurs will be more difficult but we’ve risen to the occasion before and can do so again.

“It’s a lot to deal with,” he continued. “We are in uncharted territory. But the club has been magnificent in relation to preparation. They got me out to Belgrade and hopefully we can do similar things in the group stage.”

Tottenham officials seemed equally pleased about the prospect of taking on an Irish side with one of the club’s representatives at the draw, Darren Eales, particularly enthusiastic about the idea.

“Getting Shamrock Rovers is terrific for us,” he said. “You could sense something special about the games as soon as they came out of the pot and you can imagine the hordes of Irish supporters that will come to White Hart Lane and vice versa for the game in Dublin.

“We’ve always had strong links with Ireland and we’ll look forward to coming over there but we certainly won’t be taking anything for granted. We’re well aware that there’s always that bit of an extra edge to any game between two sides from neighbouring countries.”

Stavros Sountoulidis of PAOK seemed rather more confident about the Londoners’ prospects.

“It’s difficult to play against a club from Ireland, it brings extra pressure, because you know that a club like Tottenham can beat them home and away so you need to try to do the same thing and obviously that is difficult.”

The Greeks do look the most vulnerable of Rovers’ opponents but it is all relative with Laszlo Boloni’s side having beaten both Villarreal and Dinamo Zagreb in this competition last year before eventually losing out to CSKA Moscow.

Rubin Kazan have, like many other Russian clubs in recent years, spent heavily in the hope of making major progress and a couple of years ago they beat Barcelona in the Champions League at the Nou Camp. Having finished third in the league last time around they started in that competition this season but were beaten in the play-offs by Lyon and will, it seems safe to assume, be out to make some amends by doing well in the lesser competition.