Rovers begin journey into the great unknown

For the week that’s in it, it would probably be remiss of me not to look ahead to what will truly be an historic night for League of Ireland football.

On Thursday evening, Shamrock Rovers will embark on a football journey, never before taken by an Irish club when they host Rubin Kazan from Russia in the group stages of the Europa League.

The financial rewards for Rovers have been well documented at this stage but the football experience they are about to gain is something money just can’t buy.

As a manager, this must be such an exciting time for Michael O’Neill who seems to revel in the challenge of plotting the downfall of European opposition. The hours spent dissecting DVDs and analysing playing systems appears to be something at which he particularly excels, not to mention his ability to communicate the information to his players.

It is no wonder that both he and Jim Magilton have been linked again to the Northern Ireland position which is believed to become available at the end of the European Championship 2012 qualifying campaign when it’s expected Nigel Worthington will be relieved of his duties.

It is all well and good concocting defensive formations that will prevent the opposition from scoring but exploring their potential weaknesses and plotting a way to expose them so the tie can actually be won is a different proposition altogether and that is why O’Neill stands out.

To mastermind the downfall of Bnei Yehuda last year before progressing to the destruction of Partizan Belgrade’s European football dreams this term proves that O’Neill is starting to get good at this stuff and they are challenges that fascinate him.

Other European clubs can delegate the task of preparing dossiers on their opposition to staff members but at a club like Shamrock Rovers, such luxuries have not been affordable thus far. Instead it is a job for O’Neill, Magilton and Andy Meyler to watch the tapes, debate the formations and devise the plans of action and all of that in relatively short space of time.

After the 1-1 draw at St Pats last night, O’Neill conceded that he hasn’t had the time to prepare the players for the Rubin Kazan game to the extent he could for the Partizan game.

How could he possibly start talking to the players about Thursday’s opposition before playing against Sligo on Friday and Pats on Monday?

Rovers still have a league title they want to defend and the games are coming thick and fast.

As players, the Rovers lads could be forgiven for feeling a little on the sea-sick side as they bob from Airtiricity League top-of-the-table clashes to Europa League group games back to FAI Cup clashes in the space of seven days.

It’s a big ask of fellas who are still, by and large, part-time players.

But they too must be revelling in the challenge of what lies before them. There is no pressure on them to deliver because they’ve already done that. They’ve finally breached the boundary to which League of Ireland football has so desperately aspired since Rovers first fed the appetiser to the domestic game back in 1957 when they took a hefty 6-0 lesson from Manchester United.

Deep down, I’d say every League of Ireland player secretly wishes they were a Rovers man right now - no more so than as they watched the Hoops celebrate their ground-breaking achievements in Belgrade.

And in the same vein, I am sure every domestic manager would buy O’Neill’s shoes just to stand in them between now and December 15th when Tottenham Hotspur come to Tallaght to round off what will prove to be a three-month ride which will be certainly beset with more highs and lows than your average fairground attraction.

There won’t be many out there who’ll know much about a team called PAOK Salonika from Greece but it might be worth noting they are ranked 16 places higher in the UEFA rankings than Partizan Belgrade, yet we had all heard of them!

You have to scroll a bit before finding Thursday night’s opponents Rubin Kazan who come in at a pretty impressive 56 in the table and then of course you have Henry James Redknapp’s Tottenham in 28th place despite ‘Harry’s’ apparent inconvenience with the whole Europa League debacle!

He’s described their trip to PAOK as ‘a nuisance’ this week ahead of their far greater challenge against Liverpool in the Premier League on Sunday while back in early August he said the Europa League would be ‘a killer’ to his team in terms of their challenge for domestic honours.

He also made no hesitation in saying he would take the liberty of using his younger guns in the club’s European football journey. Having had the taste of Champions League football last year, the White Hart Lane gaffer has been tantalised by the enormity of the biggest football competition on the globe and a league campaign which will secure a Champions League berth is a much more fruitful prospect for Redknapp than faffing around in the Europa League.

And you’d wonder a bit about the ripple effect of that particular thought process as clubs strive for the Holy Grail of financial windfalls and the Champions League is that. Ambitions are different, where Rovers broke the mould for Irish clubs their opposition are looking to break the mould a step further up the ladder and that in itself can present opportunity.

An opportunity not to fear the prospect of playing against what on paper looks like far superior opposition, when you consider Rovers are ranked at 324th in the UEFA standings.

For O’Neill and Shamrock Rovers this is a road to embrace while they travel together.

Robert Frost talked in his poetry about two roads diverging in a yellow wood and how taking the one less travelled by made all the difference. For now they travel together but the roads will diverge and both parties will move on stronger than they were before they met, with more experience under the belts and a better focus on the route to take, but ultimately they will take different paths.

But both will be pathways to further success, I have little doubt about that.