Conference League Play-Off Report: Istanbul Basaksehir 2-0 St Patrick’s Athletic (Istanbul win 2-0 on aggregate)

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St Patrick’s Athletic boss Stephen Kenny hailed his battling Saints who bowed out of Europe with dignity on Wednesday evening.

The Athletic were undone by two second half goals from Omer Sahiner and Olivier Kemen as Istanbul Basaksehir went through.

Midfielder Aaron Bolger was also dismissed for a wild tackle late on before Kemen sealed it.

It was a spirited effort from Kenny’s troops who had chances of their own with Mason Melia, Kian Leavy and Brandon Kavanagh all going close.

But they just fell short after seeing off Vaduz of Liechtenstein and Azerbaijanis Sabah in their previous two legged affairs before the play-off round.

“Halfway through the second-half it was nil-all and it was still in the balance and then they took the lead,” Kenny told the St Pat’s media team. 

“Then obviously the sending off hasn’t helped us for the second goal. We were still in the game at 1-0, as we’ve seen with Brandon Kavanagh’s late chance, so it’s disappointing to go out against an excellent team.

“It’s difficult to analyse because we’re so gutted,” Kenny added, assessing the European campaign as a whole.

“The players were brilliant against Vaduz, scoring five goals. We had two clean sheets against Sabah who are a highly regarded team with a €12 million budget. They are a really serious team. We pushed Istanbul Basaksehir.

“You can see by their celebrations here, the relief of getting over the line against us because they know over the 180 minutes they’ve been in a really tough tie. We’ve got to dust ourselves down and take that defeat.”



 

Istanbul Basaksehir:Muhammed Şengezer; Leonardo Campos Duarte da Silva (Olivier Kemen 7), Hamza Güreler, Jerome Osei Opoku,Ömer Şahiner (Berat Özdemir 76); Dimitris Pelkas (Lucas Alves de Lima 77), Onur Ergün, Berkay Ozcan; Deniz Turuc, Krzysztof Piatek (Philippe Keny 77), Davidson da Luz Pereira (João Brandão Figueiredo 70).

Subs not used:Volkan Babacan, Burak Kavraz, Serdar Gürler, Deniz Dilmen.

Booked:Deniz Turuc (36), Davidson da Luz Pereira (36), Onur Ergün (55).

 

St. Patrick's Athletic:Joseph Anang; Axel Sjöberg, Joseph Redmond, Tom Grivosti, Anthony Breslin; Christopher Forrester (Aaron Bolger 77), Jamie Lennon, Kian Leavy; Zack Elbouzedi (Al Amin Kazeem 88), Mason Melia (Aidan Keena 68), Jake Mulraney (Brandon Kavanagh 77).



Subs not used:Daniel Rogers, Conor Keeley, Ryan McLaughlin, Luke Turner, Jason McClelland, Jason Folarin Oyenuga, Alex Nolan, Michael Noonan.

Booked:Axel Sjöberg (90).

Sent off:Aaron Bolger (81).

 

Referee:Balazs Berke (Hungary).

Attendance:6,223

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