Next up Depor, as Shels walk in Euro wonderland
An Irish team has made it to the third round of the Champions League and the world is still spinning on its axis. And this was no lucky victory.
Shelbourne dominated their much-vaunted opponents with a European pedigree for most of this match. In the first-half alone, they had four chances that would have hit the net on any other night.
By half-time, Tolka was buzzing with nerves.
Shelbourne were playing controlled football but lacked a finish. Split could absorb the pressure and hit on the break. Or so we thought.
The nerves jangled well into the second-half. With each passing minute, it resembled one of those moral victories in which Irish sport seems to specialise. It certainly had the suspense. And then, in the 78th minute, the eircom League champions won their umpteenth corner.
Tvertko Kale, the Split 'keeper, looked destined to be remembered by Shels fans for all the wrong reasons. In the first-half, he made two brilliant saves to deny Alan Moore and Glen Fitzpatrick. This time, Kale came to clear the corner.
His punch was weak though and fell outside the box.
After a bit of head tennis, the ball came down to Dave Rogers outside the box. He unleashed a volley with his left foot that almost pierced the net. Tolka exploded.
Rogers, a centre-half from Liverpool who had grown up watching Everton, had just scored a goal that is worth €400,000 to Shelbourne. The crowd erupted.
Shels' fans like to sing about walking in a wonderland.
Rogers' sweet strike brought them there.
It was a reward for how Shelbourne controlled this game. They outplayed and out-thought their Croatian opponents. Split came with a physical approach and discovered Shels could play football.
This insistence on roughing the home side up only enhanced the confidence of Pat Fenlon's charges.
The last 12 minutes were the most tense. Split brought two forward players on in search of the equaliser.
More white whiskers grew with each Split cross into the box. Eight minutes to go and Mirza Mejic and Dragan Blatniak contrived to shoot goalward. Steve Williams smothered their effort.
Two minutes later, Dario Damjanovic crossed from the right. Mato Neretvliak was left unmarked at the far post, but misjudged the cross. The ball trickled harmlessly wide. The palpitations stopped for a minute.
Pat Fenlon, the mastermind of this wonderful success, called Jason Byrne ashore. The striker had worked his socks off. Joseph Ndo was sent into the fray, just to kill time. Fair enough. Another clearance from Owen Heary, a hero again last night, as he has been for the Tolka club for so long. Gerry McCarthy chased it down.
Suddenly, there was space. Split had sent an army into the Shels' half in search of the goal that would send them through. McCarthy played Ndo, who played a trick or two inside the box, twisting the defender and goalkeeper inside out. Moore darted forward, Ndo spotted him. Two-nil.
There was a collective rub of the eyes in Tolka.
After all the near misses, after all the wonderful away results only for sides to fall flat at home, after all the heartbreak, an Irish club had finally blossomed in Europe. From the moment the ball was kicked off, Shels were not going to be intimidated by their more experienced opponents.
They created two chances in the first 10 minutes. On another night, Glen Fitzpatrick would have reacted swifter to Jason Byrne's through-ball, Moore's flick would have ended up in the roof rather than over the crossbar.
Heary and Cahill were running riot down the wings, the benefits of summer soccer there for all to see.
Shels were clearly fitter than Split. In the 21st minute, only Kale's fingertips denied Moore a sensational 30-yard goal, as he clawed the ball for a corner.
And it was how the game would continue. Split briefly rallied, but found Rogers and Jamie Harris two slabs of granite at the back. Until those frenetic final 10 minutes, Williams didn't have a save to make.
Fenlon talked about the desire of his players before the game, a desire that wasn't as evident when he was the skipper at Tolka Park. His own skipper Heary typified this desire. As the concentration of some of his team-mates faded in the 50th minute, Heary raced back to rob the ball from Blatniak and curtail a dangerous-looking attack.
Heary's tackle ignited another Shels' attack. Until Rogers swung back on the scuffed clearance, it looked like those attacks would come to nothing.
We shouldn't have doubted them.
Fenlon believed his players were good enough and transferred that belief to them.
As Tolka erupted in rapture, Heary and Rogers were the last two players to leave the pitch. Milking every moment. Together, they and their team had taken a giant step forward for domestic soccer. Shels are now officially in their wonderland.
: Williams; Heary, Rogers, Harris, Crawley; Cahill, Moore, S Byrne, Hoolihan (Crawford 86), J Byrne (Ndo 89); Fitzpatrick.
: Kale; Suto (Damjanovic 82), Rokanina (Mejic 80), Neretvilak, Zillic; Vejic, Blatniak, Raeki (Dreagievic 55), Filekovic; Pralija, Carevic. Referee: S Sukhina (Russia).
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