Who are Shamrock Rovers' Europa Conference League play-off opponents Flora Tallinn?

Shamrock Rovers and Flora Tallinn line up ahead of kick off in their Champions League qualifier in July 2011

Shamrock Rovers and Flora Tallinn line up ahead of kick off in their Champions League qualifier in July 2011 Credit: Macdara Ferris (ETPhotos)

Shamrock Rovers play the first leg of their UEFA Europa Conference League play-off round against Flora Tallinn in Estonia on Thursday (kick-off 5pm Irish time). 

Virgin media will be showing the match live – with the return leg in Tallaght next week, which will have a crowd of 3,500 in attendance, set to be covered live by RTÉ.

So who are Flora Tallinn? 

They are the current Estonian champions having won the last two Meistriliigas and they won last year’s title by 12 points. They have won a record number of league titles in Estonia with 13 – along with eight national cups. 

They were a founding member of the Meistriliiga which formed in 1990 and currently have a squad made up completely of players from Estonia.  

The Head Coach is Jurgen Henn who was a player at the club and came up through the managerial ranks as reserve manager and assistant manager before taking over the top job in 2018.

Flora currently sit second in the table trailing Levadia by 12 points but they do have three games in hand. They have lost just the one game this season and have conceded only 12 goals in 17 games (including ten clean sheets).

Where do the play?

Flora play in the A. Le Coq Arena – which UEFA will call Lilleküla Stadium to avoid naming the beer sponsor of the stadium. 



The venue holds 14,000 and is a familiar one to Rovers players such as Ronan Finn and Alan Mannus who played there against Flora a decade ago and to Ireland fans where the Boys in Green beat Estonia in the EURO2012 play-off.

It is also the venue where Dundalk won 2-1 last month against FCI Levadia Tallinn.

What European pedigree do Flora have?

Since 1994, they have played 66 matches in Europe (winning 12, drawing 15 and losing 39) having only failed to qualify for Europe on just one occasion (the 2014/15 season). They have yet to make the group stages of a UEFA European competition. 

In the Champions League last year, they were elimiated in the first qualifying round 4-2 on penalties by Lithuanian side Suduva after the one legged tie in Tallinn finished 1-1 after extra-time.

The previous year they won their Europa League first qualifying round tie 4-2 on aggregate against Serbian side Radnicki Nis before losing to Eintracht Frankfurt in the second qualifying round (they lost 2-1 home and away).



What has been their route in Europe to get to this stage?

In this year’s Champions League first qualifying round, Flora beat Maltese side Hibernians (2-0 at home and 3-0 away) but were eliminated from the top tier UEFA competition in the next round by Legia Warsaw. Flora lost the first leg away 2-1 and the home leg 1-0. 

They dropped into the Europa League third-qualifying round where they lost 1-0 in Cyprus to Omonoia and were trailing 1-0 at half-time in the second leg at home. 25-year-old Rauno Sappinen scored twice in the second half with his 88thminute goal taking the game to extra-time.

Defender Marten Kuusk was sent off late in extra-time and will miss the first leg of the game against Rovers.

Flora lost the penalty shoot-out 5-4 as Marco Lukka and Stein Reinkort missed their spotkicks.

Who to watch out for? 

The club captain is three time Estonian player of the year Konstantin Vassiljev – he has scored 25 goals in 128 international appearances. He scored against Ireland in the Aviva Stadium in the 1-1 draw in November 2011.

The number one goalkeeper is Matvei Igonen. The 24-year-old keeper spent three seasons with Norwegian side Lillestrom prior to signing permanently with Flora last season. 

30-year-old Henrik Ojamma is a very experienced attacker who has 44 international caps for Estonia and has spent time during his career with Motherwell, Legia Warsaw, Go Ahead Eagles and Dundee. 

What are Flora’s recent results?

Like the League of Ireland, the Estonian league is a summer season. Flora only played two league games last month with matches postponed to help their task in Europe. They beat Vaprus 4-0 away and had a scoreless draw away to Paide.

Their only domestic game this month was last weekend when they suffered their first defeat from the 17 league games played so far this season. It was a 1-0 loss away to FC Kuressaare (a team who sit ninth in the ten team top flight).

When will the winners know who they will face in the UEFA Europa Conference League group stages?

The draw for the group stages will take place in Istanbul on Friday 27 August and the group stage dates are:

Matchday 1: 16 September
Matchday 2: 30 September
Matchday 3: 21 October
Matchday 4: 4 November
Matchday 5: 25 November
Matchday 6: 9 December

Who will the losers face?

To quote Eric Cantona “the losers go home” as whoever is defeated in this tie will exit Europe.

Who is the match official for this tie?

It is a team of Ukrainian officials for the first leg, led by Yevhenii Aranovskiy. The 44-year-old was referee for BATE Borisov’s 1-0 home win over Dundalk in the 2016 Champions League qualifiers. He was in charge on 5 August for the Cukaricki v Hammerby Europa Conference League qualifier. 

He had the mission last year of officiating the Greek Super League play-off between Panathinaikos and AEK Athens. He has experience of officiating in the Europa League group stages including Wolves’ 2-1 win over Slovan Bratislava in 2019. 

 

    About Macdara Ferris

    Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile