– Paul Dollery reports from the Luminus Arena, Genk
JOHN CAULFIELD MIGHT have taken a 1-0 defeat had it been offered to him before tonight’s game in Belgium, but in hindsight the Cork City boss knows his team probably deserved more.
City performed excellently against a team who started with full senior internationals from Belgium, Finland, Nigeria, Greece and Tanzania.
But the difference was made by an 18-year-old wonderkid — Leon Bailey, the young player of the year in Belgium last season who has reportedly attracted interest from Chelsea.
The Jamaican-born youngster fired home for KRC Genk in the 30th minute to give the hosts, who finished fourth in Belgium’s top flight last season, a 1-0 win in the first leg of this Europa League third round qualifier.
Despite being overmatched on paper, Cork City gave a superb account of themselves in front of a crowd of 7,765 at the Luminus Arena. This wasn’t, as many expected, a case of damage limitation and defending for their lives. The Leesiders went toe-to-toe with their opponents and came close to scoring on several occasions.
Sean Maguire headed wide from a corner, Kevin O’Connor forced Genk goalkeeper Marco Bizot into a couple of saves, Gearoid Morrissey was inches away from a goal after being teed up by Stephen Dooley, but Maguire had City’s best chance when he dragged the ball narrowly wide after getting in behind the defence on 58 minutes.
But Leon Bailey’s emphatic finish from close range on the half-hour mark proved to be the only goal of the game, so it’s all to play for in the second leg at Turner’s Cross next Thursday night, when City will be hoping that a vocal Cork crowd can help to steer them towards another big European result as they seek to overturn the 1-0 deficit.
“Obviously we knew we were going to be under a lot of pressure. But we feel a little bit disappointed because we know in games like this you don’t get many opportunities,” said Cork City manager John Caulfield afterwards.
“Genk, massive club, massive players, we knew we had to defend very well and see on the counter attack could we get chances. Overall we got a couple of chances — we got one glorious chance — and when you get a chance in a match like this, you need to take it.
“Unfortunately we didn’t so we’re disappointed from that point of view. But obviously we defended really well. I asked my players before the game to leave all their energy on the pitch and give a passionate performance.
We’re in a third qualifying round, which no one thought we would be in, and we’re over at a massive club. We’re going home with the game still alive. We’ll have a big crowd next week and we’re happy to go back to Cork.”
Caulfield added: “There were parts of the match where they were stretching the game, they were finding the pockets and pulling us around a bit, but overall we defended well. Obviously [goalkeeper Mark] McNulty did well but we still had opportunities. When you do get opportunities you have to take them, and we didn’t.
“But at the end of the day, we’re going to Cork, we’ll have a massive crowd next week obviously, 7,000 at home, full house. We know it’s still a massive game for us and we know we’re under pressure. We know how good Genk are so we need full concentration to see can we put it up to the lads.”
Caulfield paid tribute to his players for working tirelessly to deliver such an impressive performance, but he did sound a note of caution over his team’s failure to carve out an important away goal, as they had managed to do en route to eliminating Swedish Cup holders BK Hacken in the previous round.
“The mood is that the lads are shattered because they tried so hard,” Caulfield said. “In Europe now it’s so vital to get an away goal because, no matter what, when the game goes to Cork next week, one goal for Genk means three for us if we want to progress. So it’s difficult.
“Obviously they will control the game and we understand that but, at the same time, a bit like Hacken, we need to defend well and we need to defend like we did tonight. Maybe then we can score one.
The mood is probably mixed in the sense that we knew we were up against it, but we also felt that we had one very good chance.
“But I can’t ask for more. It’s a pleasure for me to bring the lads back to Cork next week in front of a full house, and that we’re still in the tie.”
When asked if progress to the next round — a play-off for a place in the group stages — is still achievable, Caulfield said: “If you’re going to the bookies you’d certainly be backing Genk. But at the same time, no one thought we’d beat BK Hacken.
“You look at the first half, the first 20 minutes, [Hacken] dominated the game. They had a couple of chances and didn’t take them. We scored and it changed the type of game. You’d never know. That’s the beauty about football and being the underdog.
“If Genk don’t play as well as they can, if their star players don’t play as well as they can and we defend well, you’d never know. But obviously if they play to the best of their ability, the better team then will win.”
