Kerryman O’Carroll and Sparta welcome Shamrock Rovers to Prague

Sparta will have insight from Kerryman Diarmuid O’Carroll. Pic: BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images.

Uefa Conference League phase

Sparta Prague v Shamrock Rovers

Letna Stadium (8pm)

Czechia international striker Jan Kuchta is just one of the threats Shamrock Rovers must smother in Prague tonight when they begin a second Conference League phase on the spin.

Sparta were comfortable victors over the Hoops in last season’s Champions League, prevailing 6-2 on aggregate, but since then Rovers reached the knockout stages of the Conference and refreshed their squad.

Where Sparta will have insight from is through Diarmuid O’Carroll, the Kerryman who left his coaching roles at Newcastle United and Northern Ireland in June to become assistant to Brian Priske at the start of his second spell in charge.

“Sparta are still very similar in terms of their personnel,” explained Hoops boss Stephen Bradley.

“Their actual system is still the same but there are definitely different changes in how they’re trying to do things within that system.

“That’s quite normal when a new manager comes in. So they’ve changed little bits in their system, but overall, it’s a very similar personnel and team who we’re playing.

“The pleasing thing is we know exactly what we’re facing in terms of players, also the environment regarding the stadium and everything that goes with that.”

Prague’s 19,000-seater Letna Stadium will stage the fixture. Serbian Veljko Birmančević, Ángelo Preciado of Ecuador’s last World Cup squad and Australian Garang Kuol are others for Rovers to shackle.

In centre-back Pico Lopes, Rovers have a player of their own heading for the next World Cup. The Cape Verde should be capable of shadowing Kuchta.

“We’ve had a lot of hard games recently and this is the one to kick off the Conference League phase,” said Lopes, who will continue to miss defensive colleague Lee Grace through injury.

“Experience is invaluable to us. This is our second successive campaign and we need to bring everything to get a good result.

“We’re familiar with some of the Sparta squad from last season. They’ve got quality players, are good in tight areas and on the turnover. That’s what you’d expect from them.

“We had a taste of last year so we want to get to the knockout stage again but we can’t get too far of ourselves.” Rovers have 900 travelling fans with to start a phase will also entails games against Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), Celje (Slovenia) and Hamrun Spartans (Malta) – all at home – along with other trips to AEK Athens (Greece) and Breidablik (Iceland).