Post by JamesB on Aug 25, 2011 23:08:43 GMT
Shamrock Rovers of Dublin beat Partizan of Belgrade tonight to qualify for the group stages of the Europa League. It's the first time an Irish club side has made it to the major stages of European competition. Irish club football has always been in the shadow of rugby and the Gaelic sports, with all the major players coming over here
To give you an idea of how much of an upset this is, Shamrock's stadium is smaller than Plainmoor with a capacity of less than 6,000, whereas Partizan's has a capacity of over 32,000, so a remarkable achievement - a genuine giant-killing, the likes of which very rarely happen in Europe in particular. Slovan Bratislava's defeat of Roma tonight pales into insigificance, even though that was quite a big shock itself
That it comes on the night where, for the first time, it was determined that there will be no Scottish representation in Europe on September 1st, just adds to the misery for the Scots, especially as Partizan are probably a better team than Rangers and Celtic
Shamrock will find out who they play in the group stages in the draw tomorrow. They could face the likes of Spurs, Atletico Madrid, Lazio, PSV Eindhoven or Dynamo Kiev
Check out the equalising goal for Shamrock which took the game to extra time - absolute belter:
welshgull.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/league-of-ireland-1-spl-0/
To give you an idea of how much of an upset this is, Shamrock's stadium is smaller than Plainmoor with a capacity of less than 6,000, whereas Partizan's has a capacity of over 32,000, so a remarkable achievement - a genuine giant-killing, the likes of which very rarely happen in Europe in particular. Slovan Bratislava's defeat of Roma tonight pales into insigificance, even though that was quite a big shock itself
That it comes on the night where, for the first time, it was determined that there will be no Scottish representation in Europe on September 1st, just adds to the misery for the Scots, especially as Partizan are probably a better team than Rangers and Celtic
Shamrock will find out who they play in the group stages in the draw tomorrow. They could face the likes of Spurs, Atletico Madrid, Lazio, PSV Eindhoven or Dynamo Kiev
Check out the equalising goal for Shamrock which took the game to extra time - absolute belter:
welshgull.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/league-of-ireland-1-spl-0/
