The Little Drogheda That Could?
Since the Champions League went to a group stage with the 1991/92 edition (the last tournament to be called the European Cup, before the competition became the Champions League), no Irish, Northern Irish, or Welsh side has made it into the competition proper.
In 2004/05, League of Ireland side Shelbourne made it all the way to the third qualifying round, where they held Deportivo La Coruna to a 0-0 draw in the first leg before succumbing 3-0 in the second leg.
This year, it’s on League of Ireland champion Drogheda United to carry the mantle for the British Isles’ ‘lesser’ leagues.
Drogheda isn’t exactly a ‘newcomer’ in European competition, as they made it to the second qualifying round of each of the last two UEFA Cup competitions. However, this is their first foray into Europe’s top-tier club competition after winning their first League of Ireland title last year.
Drogheda knocked off Estonian side Levadia in the first round, winning the first leg 2-1 and sealing a 3-1 aggregate triumph with a 1-0 away win in the second leg.
But, they’re facing a much bigger fish in the second qualifying round in Dynamo Kiev, who may well have taken some beatings lying down in last year’s Champions League against the likes of Manchester United, but are a regular in the group stage.
And if Drogheda want to equal Shelbourne’s feat and put themselves in position for the seemingly impossible, they’re up against it to do so.
On Tuesday night, Drogheda hosted Dynamo at Dalymount Park in Dublin, and fell behind in the 23rd minute to a Taras Mikhalik goal. However, they shook off that early deficit, and shortly after the second-half restart, leveled the match at 1 with a goal by Adam Hughes.
However, their hopes of going to Ukraine on level terms were dashed when Dynamo’s Olexandr Aliyev netted in the 86th minute to give the Ukrainian runners-up a valuable second away goal and a 2-1 victory.
It may well seem like there’s a mountain to climb, especially when they’re going up against a relatively proven and decorated side on the European stage, but at least they know they can score goals after finding the net at home. And if they can do that twice and keep Dynamo at bay for 90+ minutes, Drogheda United will have their ticket to the third qualifying round.
If they do make it that far, it’ll be the test of all tests, as they could meet the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, Barcelona, or Juventus with a berth in the group stage on the line.
Contrary to popular opinion, Ireland is not in the UK.
Eddie get an atlas and a history book! Drogheda in the UK, my God!
let this be a lesson to anybody reading who will write about ireland in the future.irish people HATE our glorious country being seen as aprt of the UK…just remember that
but about drogheda,its great to see a club in the champions league and they were so close to a great result against a big club with champions league history.if they somehow manage to progress it would be excellent for irish football,especially in a time of crisis where clubs are close to bankruptcy,some of them can only continue to the end of the season
Apologies to the Irish people that I may have offended – didn’t mean anything by the comment in the least!
The difference in class was pretty obvious on Tuesday, really, and it would be very surprising if Drogheda make it through. That said, their attitude was fantastic. Ordinarily they’re pretty hard to watch, but instead of flooding the midfield and letting their front men feed of scraps, they really took it to Dynamo when they got the chance. What’s more, they actively made sure they got the chance: they refused to sit back and allow Dynamo to do as they pleased. When a team of minnows gets knocked out of a competiton by a relative giant, the post-match guff about how “it was a brave performance” and “they can be proud of how they played” can be pretty hollow, but Drogheda really did do themselves proud here.
I went to the home leg of the Shels game with Deportivo. Its a real shame what happened to them because if anyone was going to do it it was them.
Comment removed by moderator.
Good to see someone writing on the relatively obscure, Eddie. But as regards their chances…well I’m afraid, no chance at all.
Yeah, Eddie, thanks to your staggering ignorance the British army have invaded our glorious country once more! The tanks are rolling down O’Connell Street as I speak – oh God! They’ve blown up the Spike and….yes, they’re hauling up a newly-carved statue of Nelson in its place! Oh, the humanity! And as I look out the the window, there’s a squadron of Black & Tans with a battering ram about to break into my house and murder me in front of my wife and children. Expect my ghost to haunt you by making regular comments registering its spluttering outrage at you, sir.
Fredorrarci – how do Irish ghosts get drunk? Or is the afterlife sober for you?
A ghost is composed of pure spirit, so I suppose you could say I have reached the average Irish person’s naturally desired state.
To respond to Ron’s second comment (it’s in my inbox as I’ve subscribed to the comments on this post; I assume it’s awating moderation or some such):
Perhaps a joke automatically fails when one has to explain it, but I’ll risk it anyway. My point is that we can surely be a wee bit more confident as a nation so as not to get too concerned when someone makes an error such as the one in this post (especially after Eddie apologised). Come on, man! Let’s just enjoy ourselves! We’re mature and loaded and we have our own lurid minor celebrity deaths and a golfer who’s won the British Open twice in a row and we can paralyse a huge pan-national organisation via a simple plebiscite (whether or not you agree with the result, feel the power)…we have no need to worry ourselves about such trivial matters as this.
(rattles chains and disappears)
doubt it was moderation Fredo, moronic comments get removed so I assume his got deleted by the editor (more than one around, hooray for management).
the way you guys fucked over the EU was quite something. The fact that the EU took it lying down was even more hilarious. A double-lesson in why democracy was doomed from the start…
It’s all a bit strange in EU-land at the moment, alright. Don’t worry – there’ll be a re-run soon, and if that fails there’ll be another, and if that fails, etc. Buggered if I know what to make of it all, to be honest.
But hey, this is a football blog – apologies for steering it from the topic at hand.
Dynamo Kiev 2-2 Drogheda
almost made it…