Stephen Kenny believes that his Derry City side can improve on this season's record-breaking Uefa Cup run if, as expected, they go on to earn another crack at one of European football's top two competitions next season. In the wake of Thursday's slightly one-sided defeat in Paris, however, it is likely that any Irish side hoping to make the much sought-after break through to the group stages will need its fair share of luck both when the draw is made for the final round of eliminators and when the games themselves are played.
"We can definitely come back better than this next year," said the Dubliner in the wake of Thursday's 2-0 loss. "But that's not to say we can qualify for the group stages. The fact is that we're simply not at the stage where we can say that Irish teams should be in the group stages of European competitions.
"What we can say now is that getting through is a possibility because we're getting to the stage of competitions where we're only a couple of games away and we have to keep creating those opportunities and then hope that sooner rather than later one of our teams will take its chance."
PSG coach Guy Lacombe was generous in his praise of City after Thursday's game, admitting that he had again felt obliged to change the French side's system in order to counter what he saw as Derry's greatest strength - it's central midfield - but Kenny admitted that his side had been second best on a night when they failed to seriously test the home side's goalkeeper even once during 90 minutes of play.
"We didn't create any chances of note; we have to accept that and overall I don't think anyone would dispute that they were the better team, but when you look at the quality of players they have in their squad you wouldn't be entirely surprised by that.
"I think we've done terrifically well in Europe this season (three wins and two draws) but the reality is that if we want to get to the group stages then you need to get a bit of luck when the draw is made and then, when you're playing a team at this stage of the competition, you probably need to dig in defensively . . . then ride your luck a bit to score a goal.
"If we'd done that at home then we would have been in with a real chance here but as it was PSG were always going to score against us at home - that's inevitable - and that puts a lot of pressure on you to score too which we simply weren't capable of doing in the end."
The priority for the City players now will be the pursuit of a domestic treble but Kenny believes that with so many young players in his squad they can look forward with some confidence to further European adventures.
"We have a lot of lads here, players like Kevin Deery, Barry Molloy and Mark Farren, who are only going to learn from what they've been through . . . and get better."
