At the end of August, League of Ireland sides Shelbourne FC and Shamrock Rovers reached the play-offs for the UEFA Europa Conference League league phase. Shelbourne were to face Linfield, having already defeated them in the first qualifying round for the Champions League. Shamrock Rovers were to face Portuguese top flight Santa Clara. Shelbourne were heavy favourites to win their tie and advance to the league phase of the Conference League. Shamrock Rovers were the less fancied side going into their tie.
On August 21, Shamrock Rovers travelled to Portugal to play the first leg of their tie against Santa Clara. Bookies had priced Rovers at 13/2 to win the game. Santa Clara took an early lead in the 20th minute through Vinicius Lopes. Rovers fought back, with Danny Grant netting an equaliser in the dying minutes of the first half, bringing life back to the team. Everyone expected a boring draw, or thought that Santa Clara would come back to life in the second half and stage a demolition job. Instead, Daniel Mandroiu found the back of the net once again in the 66th minute, and Rovers won the first leg 2-1. The Hoops took their advantage back to Tallaght Stadium, where they played out a 0-0 draw, a draw that made League of Ireland history.
While that 0-0 draw played out, Shelbourne were in the North of Ireland playing their second leg game against Linfield. They had already won their first leg 3-1 and put on another impressive performance in Windsor Park to cement their place in Europe with a 2-0 win (5-1 agg.).
What does this mean for the League of Ireland?
Two League of Ireland teams have never competed in European competition proper at the same time before in the league’s history. Dublin is actually the only city in the Conference League to have two teams from the same city competing in the competition.
Both teams took home a whopping €3.7 million prize, just for qualifying for the competition. The prize money for winning the League of Ireland Premier Division is a measly €125,000. European competition is therefore a goldmine for not just the clubs that are competing, but for the League of Ireland in general.
The qualification of both of these teams will bring even more attention to the League of Ireland, guaranteeing more eyes, more ticket sales and revenue for LOI clubs and hopefully the growth of the league to ensure that Irish teams are competing in Europe every year.
Now that the draws for the league phase of the European competitions are done, we know who Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers will now face in the coming months.
Shamrock Rovers Conference League opponents: Shakhtar (H), Sparta Praha (A), Celje (H), AEK Athens (A), Hamrun Spartans (H), Breidablik (A)
Shelbourne Conference League opponents: Crystal Palace (H), AZ Alkmaar (A), Drita (H), Celje (A), Häcken (H), Shkendija (A)
The first fixtures for the teams will be played in the first week of October.
Shamrock Rovers will play Sparta Praha in Prague on 2nd October, while Shelbourne will face Swedish side BK Häcken in Tallaght Stadium at the same time. Shelbourne have been forced to play their home games in Tallaght stadium due to UEFA’s stadium rules. UEFA’s rules also ruled out hosting their home games in other venues such as the Aviva stadium.
