Cork City take lead to Sweden

Cork City 3 Malmo 1

Cork City produced their best-ever European performance with a 3-1 win over Swedish side Malmo at Turner’s Cross tonight.

Showing no regard for their more illustrious opponents, City played their best football of the season to create a huge upset in the Inter-Toto Cup and give themselves a great chance of outright victory in the tie next Sunday in Sweden.

With Danny Murray and Danny Murphy inspirational at the back, George O’Callaghan and Kevin Doyle in superb passing form from midfield and John O’Flynn as sharp as ever, City were the better team.

However, conceding a late goal took some of the gloss of this magnificent team effort with Liam Kearney their brightest star on the night.

Malmo started poorly and looked very sluggish. Currently in the middle of a three-week summer break, the Swedish side struggled to impose themselves on the game and looked off the mark for long spells.

City did not and took the lead in the 10th minute when O’Flynn took advantage of some hesitancy between Malmo’s debutant keeper Joel Ringstrom and his centre-half Thomas Olsson.

O’Flynn got to the ball before the big keeper and scored into an empty net to set the tone for a superb first-half performance.

Doyle should have scored a second in the 17th minute but his header went inches wide while Murray should have doubled City’s lead in the 34th minute but was let down by poor control.

The skipper made no mistake a minute later when he got his head to an O’Callaghan free-kick to bring the 3,500 home fans to their feet.

Malmo forced three successive corners right at the end of the first half but that was as good as it got for them in the opening period.

Malmo almost pulled a goal back four minutes after the restart when Hasse Mattisson’s shot came back off the crossbar with their first attack of the second half.

City should have gone three up two minutes later when Doyle missed a sitter with his head from five yards after Liam Kearney had found him unmarked with a perfect cross.

Cork made it 3-0 after 61 minutes when captain fantastic Danny Murray scored his second goal of the night with another header from an O’Callaghan corner.

Malmo continued to play impressive football without threatening the City goal with their Brazilian playmaker Afonso Alves at the centre of everything.

They were finally rewarded for their efforts in the 85th minute when substitute Darko Lukanovic headed home from six yards.