Conference League playoff: Shamrock Rovers 0-0 Santa Clara (Portugal) (Rovers win 2-1 on aggregate)
A unique moment in the history of Irish football as Shamrock Rovers join Shelbourne in the Uefa Conference League group stages.
Two Irish clubs have never made it this far in the same season.
The true reward is not the eye-watering prize money, rather the chance to play six different European opponents into mid-December, but between them the Dublin clubs will share a guaranteed €7.5 million.
And that’s only for securing a place in this afternoon’s group stage draw alongside Crystal Palace and Fiorentina. Each victory from now on comes with a €400,000 bonus.
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Considering Rovers published losses of €2.3 million in 2023, when they didn’t make the group stage, and earned €6.3 million last season as they got to the Conference League knockout round, these are undeniably special times for the League of Ireland.
The big moment came in the 70th minute. There was a panicked sound from the 8,223 attendance as everyone struggled to believe what Ed McGinty managed to pull off.
Santa Clara had failed to force a save from the Shamrock Rovers goalkeeper until Vinicius Lopes cracked a volley towards the roof of the net. McGinty, acrobatically, met the moment with a one-hand parry.
McGinty was the hero once again in the 87th minute when he dived low to push Gabriel Silva’s free-kick to safety. That’s when the Tallaght faithful began to sing.
Rovers more than survived the Portuguese club from the Azores late, desperate attacks. The likes of Daniel Cleary and Lee Grace calmly dispossessed Vasco Matos’ men and forced a corner down the other end to eat up the clock.
After 60 seconds of applause rippled around Tallaght Stadium in the 11th minute for Josh Bradley, the 11-year-old son of Rovers manager Stephen Bradley who recently beat cancer, more good news filtered south from Belfast.
Shelbourne had scored twice to take a 5-1 lead on aggregate over Linfield. Clean strikes by Harry Wood and Ali Coote, the Englishman and the Scotsman, guaranteed the League of Ireland champions a place among the 36 clubs in today’s draw.
Shels have never made it this far. Having kicked off 15 minutes later, Rovers were still chasing a fourth trip to the group stages of European football, the third time since 2022, to make it more of a habit than good fortune.
Santa Clara appeared to read the script, with their sprinkling of Brazilians lacking the intensity to score twice themselves and deny Bradley’s team a winter on the Continent.
The Hoops fourth league title in five seasons is almost complete, at a canter, mainly because of the impenetrable back three of Pico Lopes, Cleary and Grace. They gave Wendel Silva and Brenner nothing to work off.
Usually the unheralded member of the three centre-halves, Grace was outstanding.
Down the other end, Rory Gaffney had a whale of a time crashing into Sidney Lima and Matheus Nunes (not to be mistaken with his namesake at Manchester City). Vinicius Lopes had a half chance but Rovers were switched on throughout the first half with McGinty smothering a bobbling ball.
The Portuguese frustration began to show when Silva was booked by referee Matej Jug for kicking Lopes before Josh Honohan rattled the Santa Clara crossbar with a snap shot.
If the constant complaining from the Santa Clara dugout was any indication, Jug and his Slovenian officials could expect a hectic end to their evening.
Rovers showed no mercy after the break, thundering forward and almost scoring through Danny Mandroiu. The trick was to trap the visitors in their own territory and drain them of the professional pride they had brought on an eight-hour flight from the mid-Atlantic archipelago.
Bradley’s use of substitutes was going to be important, such were the concentration levels required to contain the Brazilians.
But it was Matthew Healy and Dylan Watts who sat deep and refused to push out of midfield, which put the emphasis on Mandroiu and Gaffney to run themselves into the ground before Graham Burke and 17-year-old Michael Noonan made an impact off the bench.
Twice Lopes went close to planting a header in the Santa Clara net from set pieces. Twice the crowd groaned as everyone willed the seconds to tick down to 90 minutes.
Bradley felt it too, the 40-year-old manager in his 10th season in charge was more animated than usual. Calm as ever, but Rovers would struggle to stomach hearing about Shels packing out Tallaght for three guaranteed home ties.
The Vini Lopes volley almost sucked the life out of the place. McGinty to the rescue not once but twice.
Shamrock Rovers: McGinty; Cleary, Lopes, Grace; Grant, Watts (McEneff 82), Healy, Nugent (Burke 61), Honohan; Mandroiu; Gaffney (Noonan 72).
Santa Clara: Batista; Lima, Rocha (Ferreira 75), Nunes; Cabral (Soares 75), Serginho, Adriano, Victor (G Silva 61); Brenner (Manoel 75), W Silva (Pereira 61), Lopes.
Referee: Matej Jug (Slovenia).
