SOCCER: Shamrock Rovers 1 PAOK Salonika 3:PLAYING SUMMER soccer has been critical to the progress made by Irish sides in Europe over the last few years but there was always the danger that if a side went far enough they might, by extending their season, become victims of their own success. To judge by this defeat Shamrock Rovers have managed it at the first attempt.
There was a spirited display during a second half in which they scored but there was no disguising the fact that this was the most difficult night endured by the Irish champions in this competition so far.
Tiredness looked to be a major factor for Michael O’Neill’s side and the northerner must find it difficult to lift players for games in which a one-off performance or even a moment of magic can deliver something as tangible as qualification for another round. In the end he conceded the biggest problem may just be that the teams Rovers are coming up against are simply too good.
“Ultimately we were outclassed in the first half but we showed great courage in the second to go and play like that at three down and to get a goal back, although there’s no denying that we were vulnerable on the counter-attack.
“It’s been a very long season alright and there’s no doubt that fatigue was a factor but there’s a massive gulf in class too, you have to concede that and it’s more difficult to play against these teams at home because there’s more of an onus on us to try to win the games. It’s not ideal but we were delighted to qualify for this stage of this competition, we’re glad to be here and we’ll go on now and deal with the last two games.”
O’Neill must have been feeling for a while early on that he had tempted fate by observing on Wednesday that, whatever his side’s failings, they had not up until this point “crumbled” during the campaign. Here, they seemed intent on doing precisely that early on with a start to rival the one against Rubin Kazan followed by a half packed with defensive clangers and uncertainty.
The Greeks got their breakthrough barely seven minutes in when Dimitris Salpingidis put an end to a bout of chaos in and around the Rovers box by coolly pushing the ball past Ryan Thompson and into the bottom right corner, despite Craig Sives’ efforts to keep it out.
For a while it looked like being the start of a rout which Rovers were incapable of halting. In central midfield Conor McCormack and Stephen Rice fumbled, countless passes were misplaced or, on a heavy surface, under-hit. At the back the locals were completely hapless with Enda Stevens finding Giorgios Georgiadis far too hot to handle out wide and Sives generally struggling to come to terms with the heat inside.
The Greeks believed that putting pressure on the home side’s players, including Thompson, would reveal cracks and they consistently anticipated the errors then capitalised on them. There could have been a few more goals by the break but they were certainly well worth the two they added towards the end of the half courtesy of Giorgos Fotakis and, most impressively, Salpingidis again.
By the time the Greek international’s floating volley had hit the back of the net O’Neill was obviously already contemplating a double substitution aimed at enabling his side to mount some sort of threat at the other end. He made it at the break and the impact was immediate with Karl Sheppard, a remote and ineffective figure in the first half, energised by a switch to the right where he promptly started to have a major say in the proceedings.
A string of Rovers frees followed one of which Billy Dennehy scored from with an outstanding low, curling strike that flew in off the foot of the post while Sheppard should have had another goal with a close-range header.
There followed a steady succession of chances at both ends and while Rovers might take comfort from the fact that they could have nicked something from the game if they had been more clinical, PAOK never looked like crumbling. Still, Rovers’ second-half efforts gave the home fans something to shout about.
With eight points in the bag from four games, PAOK might just be going through. For Rovers, the search for a precious first point continues in four weeks with a daunting trip to Kazan.
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Thompson; Sullivan, Sives, Murray, Stevens; McCormack (McCormack, 70 mins); McCabe (Twigg, half-time), Turner (Kilduff, half-time), O’Donnell, Dennehy; Sheppard. Subs not used: Brush, Finn, Paterson, Ricketts. Booked: Sullivan.
PAOK SALONIKA: Chalkias; Sznaucner, Cirillo, Malezas, Lino; Arias; Lazar; Fotakis (Balafas, 64 mins); Georgiadis ((Apostolpoulos, 88 mins), Salpingidis (Papazoglou, 89 mins), Vieirinha. Subs not used: Kresic, Robert, Kitsiou, Etto. Booked: Fotakis, Cirillo, Lino.
Referee: Aleksei Kulbakov (Belarus).
