St. Patrick's Athletic -v- Steaua Bucharest
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St. Pat’s have a mammoth task ahead of them in the RDS tomorrow night when they face Cristiano Bergodi’s Steaua Bucharest (kick-off 7.45pm). Jeff Kenna’s side have a three-goal deficit to overcome from the first leg in Romania last week, and if they were to emerge triumphantly from this tie it would be right up there as one of the great performances by an Irish club in European competition.
The Richmond Park outfit has produced many first-rate performances in Europe both this season and last season, but the game in Stadionul Ghencea last Thursday didn’t quite go the way that the former English Premier League winner would have wanted. Everything was going to plan for the Saints when the sides went in scoreless at the break, but three second-half goals from Banel Nicolita and substitute Bogdan Stancu (2) delivered a huge hammer blow to St. Pat’s.
Even at 2-0, it would have been a reasonable enough result for the seven-time League Of Ireland Champions, but in their current situation even a 3-0 win would only bring the game into extra-time.
Nevertheless, there is a huge onus on Pat’s to get out there and try to take the contest to Bucharest because, should Pat’s manage to get an early goal, they may make the visitors feel a little nervous. As we speak, there have been a total of 4,000 tickets sold for this game so there should be good support for both sides, as the Bucharest fans will be keen to travel over after they were denied the chance to see their team in the first leg due to it being played behind closed doors owing to previous crowd troubles.
Having finished 6th in the Romanian top-flight last season, Bucharest will want to continue their proud European condition this year, which has seen them win both the European Cup and the European Super Cup in 1986. Their European Cup triumph came against Spanish giants Barcelona (2-0 on penalties), who had the likes of Bernd Schuster and Steve Archibald in their team and were managed by none other than Terry Venables.
They remain to do this day the only Romanian side to have won the top prize in European club football and they would later go on to finish runners-up in 1989, which was an improvement on the previous year’s semi-final finish. Most recently, they finished in the last four of the 2005-06 Uefa Cup campaign, and this once more illustrates just how hard a challenge it will be for Jeff Kenna’s side to overturn their current deficit.
The time has still to come when an Irish club has qualified for the group stages of a European competition, and it is often seen as an achievement in itself when they manage to make it to the final qualifying round like St. Pat’s. Last year, when the format was slightly different, they made it to the first round proper before losing to Hertha Berlin, having beaten JFK Olimps Riga and Elfsborg before that.
Likewise this year, they overcame Malta side Valletta as well as FC Krylia Sovetov Samara before taking on Bucharest. One thing that is helping Kenna ahead of this match is the fact that he has a fully-fit squad to pick from, with the likes of Gary Dempsey and Mark Quigley pushing hard for a starting berth.
This will give St. Pat’s a good chance of getting a positive result out of the game and, while qualification will ultimately be out of their reach, they may just be able to come away with a win from this match.
Extratime.ie Prediction: St. Patrick’s Athletic 2 – 1 win.
The Richmond Park outfit has produced many first-rate performances in Europe both this season and last season, but the game in Stadionul Ghencea last Thursday didn’t quite go the way that the former English Premier League winner would have wanted. Everything was going to plan for the Saints when the sides went in scoreless at the break, but three second-half goals from Banel Nicolita and substitute Bogdan Stancu (2) delivered a huge hammer blow to St. Pat’s.
Even at 2-0, it would have been a reasonable enough result for the seven-time League Of Ireland Champions, but in their current situation even a 3-0 win would only bring the game into extra-time.
Nevertheless, there is a huge onus on Pat’s to get out there and try to take the contest to Bucharest because, should Pat’s manage to get an early goal, they may make the visitors feel a little nervous. As we speak, there have been a total of 4,000 tickets sold for this game so there should be good support for both sides, as the Bucharest fans will be keen to travel over after they were denied the chance to see their team in the first leg due to it being played behind closed doors owing to previous crowd troubles.
Having finished 6th in the Romanian top-flight last season, Bucharest will want to continue their proud European condition this year, which has seen them win both the European Cup and the European Super Cup in 1986. Their European Cup triumph came against Spanish giants Barcelona (2-0 on penalties), who had the likes of Bernd Schuster and Steve Archibald in their team and were managed by none other than Terry Venables.
They remain to do this day the only Romanian side to have won the top prize in European club football and they would later go on to finish runners-up in 1989, which was an improvement on the previous year’s semi-final finish. Most recently, they finished in the last four of the 2005-06 Uefa Cup campaign, and this once more illustrates just how hard a challenge it will be for Jeff Kenna’s side to overturn their current deficit.
The time has still to come when an Irish club has qualified for the group stages of a European competition, and it is often seen as an achievement in itself when they manage to make it to the final qualifying round like St. Pat’s. Last year, when the format was slightly different, they made it to the first round proper before losing to Hertha Berlin, having beaten JFK Olimps Riga and Elfsborg before that.
Likewise this year, they overcame Malta side Valletta as well as FC Krylia Sovetov Samara before taking on Bucharest. One thing that is helping Kenna ahead of this match is the fact that he has a fully-fit squad to pick from, with the likes of Gary Dempsey and Mark Quigley pushing hard for a starting berth.
This will give St. Pat’s a good chance of getting a positive result out of the game and, while qualification will ultimately be out of their reach, they may just be able to come away with a win from this match.
Extratime.ie Prediction: St. Patrick’s Athletic 2 – 1 win.
About Daire Walsh
Daire Walsh began reporting for Extratime in 2009, when he covered Kildare County's games in the League Of Ireland First Division. He currently reports on games involving the league's Dublin sides and also Bray Wanderers. … View Full Profile