AFTER SUCCESSFULLY NEGOTIATING their way through opening-round ties against Jeunesse Esch and Linfield respectively, St Patrick’s Athletic and Cork City will both be in second-round action this evening in the qualifying stages of the Europa League.
Pat’s are in Belarus to take on Dinamo Minsk in their first leg (4.30pm), while City have made the much shorter journey to Gothenburg for the first of two meetings with Swedish Cup holders BK Hacken (6pm). Both second legs will take place back on Irish soil a week from today.
Having suffered a 1-0 defeat to Sligo Rovers at the weekend, Pat’s will be hoping for better fortunes against a side who finished second to BATE Borisov in their domestic league last season.
After reaching the group stages of the Europa League in the last two seasons — they recorded a notable 2-1 win away to Fiorentina in 2014 — Dinamo will be strong favourites to progress to the third and final qualifying round at the expense of Liam Buckley’s men.
Cork City also face a tall order against BK Hacken, a side packed with senior internationals from Sweden, Finland, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, DR Congo and Gambia, while prolific Brazilian striker Paulinho is their main threat in attack.
“They’re a massive team here,” said Cork City manager John Caulfield. “You arrive at their training ground and you see all their players driving sponsored cars. One of their players [defender Simon Sandberg] was bought by one of the clubs in Sofia [Levski] the other day for over a million [euro], which shows where they’re at.
“We hear the running costs of their club are somewhere up around 25 or 30 million, so it gives you a comparison about what type of club they are over here.”
However, Caulfield is hopeful that his side can record another memorable result against Swedish opposition. The Leesiders were 4-1 aggregate winners against Malmo in the Intertoto Cup in 2004, before dumping Djurgardens out of the UEFA Cup on away goals a year later.
“The brilliant thing about sport is that there are no guarantees,” said Caulfield, who has given injured duo Greg Bolger and Kenny Browne a 50/50 chance of being fit for selection.
“We’ve seen upsets in every sport for hundreds of years and that’s the beauty about it. While they’re overwhelming favourites and certainly you can see from the records in the last number of seasons why we’re massive underdogs, at the same time we have great resolve within the team, great commitment, great spirit and a really great attitude amongst the lads.
“They might have all the stars, but the most important thing for us as a team is to gel together, start the game right and make sure that we don’t stand off them. If you give them space and room, they can open you up.”
