Conference League Preview: St Patrick's Athletic -v- FK Sabah

Stephen Kenny with winger Jake Mulraney

Stephen Kenny with winger Jake Mulraney Credit: Matthew Lysaght (ETPhotos)

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC

Tallaght Stadium will be rocking on Thursday night as St Patrick's Athletic look to progress in the Conference League when they face Sabah FK from Azerbaijan in the first leg of the third qualifying round (kick-off is at 7.45pm).

St Pat’s home ground at Richmond Park home does not meet Uefa standards for the third round which means they have to play at Shamrock Rovers home ground, a few stops down the Luas line in Tallaght.

The Saints have found form at the right time after a dismal start to the league season which saw them in the lower half of the table with aspirations for a league title long forgotten.

They were also dumped out of the FAI Cup by Derry City but they seemed to have turned a corner since that low point an are now unbeaten in the last three matches.

They had an excellent 5-3 aggregate win over Vaduz FC in the second round of the European competition and maintained that form when winning a five-goal thriller against Sligo Rovers last Sunday night.

They have scored eight goals in those three last matches and the fact that they had a very good spread of scorers will no doubt please manager Stephen Kenny as he sets about putting his own stamp on the team.

Brandon Kavanagh (2), Jake Mulraney (2), Aidan Keena, Zack Elbouzedi, Joe Redmond and Romal Palmer have all found the net, with two of the goals being successful strikes from the penalty spot.

Defender Tom Grivosti spoke to the Pat's media team in advance of the game and he said: "Of late, our results have started to follow our performances and we are looking to keep that going, a lot of the boys have been involved in the last few weeks and everybody is playing their part.

"We are going to need that with Thursday- Sunday- Thursday coming up, and hopefully more Thursdays to come. All the lads are putting in a shift, and we are now starting to get the results to go with it, so we are hoping to carry that on for as long as possible."



In relation to their opposition, he added: "We have done a lot of video analysis on them, we know they have some good players going forward, but we are going to have a game plan where we can hurt them where they are weak, so hopefully we can do that.’’

"When you are playing at home in the first leg, you can get at teams, especially as we are used to the weather here, we can press them hard. It can be difficult to do that away from home in places like Azerbaijan where is very hot, so we will be looking to make it very uncomfortable for them while we have them in Tallaght."                                                                                            

SABAH FK

Sabah Football Klub is an Azerbaijani professional football club and it plays in the Azerbaijan Premier League, the top tier of Azerbaijani football.

The clubs base in the Masazir region which is only about 25km from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

The club is very new having only been founded in September 2017 and they qualified for the Europa Conference League by finishing third in their own national league in 2023/24, 25 points behind runaway winners Qarabag.



In this season’s competition, they were drawn against Israeli club Maccabi Haifa in the Second Qualifying Round stage and won the first leg by 3-0 in Israel.

The second leg was a dramatic affair with Haifa wining the tie 6-3 in a nine-goal thriller, only to lose the penalty shoot-out by 3-2.

The domestic league in Azerbaijan has only just commenced and in their opening game on Sunday August 4 Sabah drew 2-2 at home to Shamakhi FC.

Their squad is made up primarily of natives but they do have a smattering of foreign imports including winger Joy-Lance Michels (Germany), defender Jon Irazabal Iraurgui (Spain), and striker Njegoš Kupusović (Serbia).

Their team is captained by a native, Elvin Sərkər oğlu Camalov, who has 85 club appearances in his three years in Masazir and who has also 10 caps for the Azerbaijan national team.

When Pats travel to Azerbaijan for the second leg on Thursday August 15th, they will be playing in Sabah’s home ground, the 8,600 capacity Bank Respublika Arena.

The winners of the two-leg tie will face the either FC Iberia 1999 Tbilisi (Georgia) or Istanbul Basaksehir (Turkey) at the Europa Conference League play off stage.

Referee: Vilhjalmur Thorarinsson (Iceland)

 

PREDICTION

St Patricks Athletic 2-1 Sabah FK

 

St Patrick's Athletic

Injured: None.

Doubtful: None.

Suspended: None.

 

Sabah FK       

Injured: None.

Doubtful: None.

Suspended: None.

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