Stephen Bradley pinpoints area that can fire Shamrock Rovers to Champions League glory
Shamrock Rovers are facing Icelandic opposition once again in the Champions League.
Stephen Bradley has backed his wingers to soar in Iceland tonight.
The Hoops are in Champions League action in Reykjavik against Vikingur, hoping lightning doesn’t strike twice against Icelandic opposition.
Last year they fell at this hurdle to Breidablik and were dumped into the Europa Conference League, where they lost out to Hungarian giants Ferencvaros.
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It was a costly defeat - as the €4m they netted in 2022 when they reached the group stages was reduced to just over €800,000.
However, Bradley found himself short of width when they entered the Champions League last year through injury.
This time around, the game has come at the perfect time, with some key widemen returning to full fitness.
“The last two or three weeks we’ve seen bodies come back, which has been helpful,” he said. “We got more minutes into legs on Thursday (against Dundalk).
“When you look, Neil (Farrugia) is back, Trevor (Clarke) is fit, Darragh Burns is back, and we didn’t have them options last year.
“It’s really important that you have good options in wide areas, when it comes to Europe, you need pace and power and we have that available this year which we didn’t have last year.”
Bradley believes that width is key in European games.
“It’s a really important part of what you do, it’s not the only part but it’s important,” he said.
“Because if you don’t have that, the opposition can change their press and the game becomes a different game, which it did last year against Breidablik.
“They seen it very early, but we’ve got those players available with those attributes which creates a different proposition in terms of how they press us.”
While he hopes Rovers’ wingers can provide the ammunition for a big Champions League win, he is aware that his side will have to stop Vikingur from profiting from their wing play.
“I think they’ve scored 26 goals from wide areas so that shows us how dangerous they are from wide areas,” he said.
“They’re very good in the final third, they always look to exploit wide areas, they get bodies in the box, they’re good in the box.
“We know where they are strong and they are really good at what they do.
“But I do believe if we’re at our levels and we have enough in the group we can really cause them problems going the other way.”
While money will be on the minds of the bean-counters at Tallaght Stadium, Bradley says he can’t get caught up thinking about the financial side of this two-legged tie.
“It can't. Do I understand the finances? Everyone in Irish football does,” he said.
“Every smaller nation in Europe would look to Europe as an area when you can earn really good money for the club.
“We know it's important, there's no getting away from that but as the manager, as a team, that's not your focus or your thought process.
“It's about the opposition, what we are facing, how we are going to stop them and hurt them, that's as simple as it is.
“If you start thinking of everything outside, you will lose focus on what's important.”
Aaron McEneff, Lee Grace, Graham Burke and Rory Gaffney are all out for Rovers, but Bradley is confident he has the personnel to get a big result tonight.
“Look it’s always good to be able to take any game back to Tallaght but we know we have to do our work here first of all,” he said.
“If we do that, we know going back to Tallaght we’ll get a good crowd and it’s not a nice place for opposition to come and play when it’s like that.”
He added: “They’re a good team, we shouldn’t be surprised by that. We all saw Bredablik last year and these are similar to that.
“These are a good team, you can see they’re coached well and they’re very dangerous in the attacking third.
“As I said at the weekend, it’s a tough tie, there is no doubt about that.”
Meanwhile, Bradley has called for understanding from Norwegian referee Sigurd Kringstad ahead of the game tonight.
This will be the first game involving the Hoops that fall under new UEFA rules.
Often, clubs involved in Europe have been visited by an official from Europe’s governing body, who would clarify any adjustments to or interpretations of the rules.
However, this hasn’t happened this summer, so Rovers’ players have had to watch the Euro 2024 games closely to get to grips with any changes.
One of the key ones is that it is now a bookable offence for anyone other than the team captain to speak to the referee.
Asked if the players had not been briefed this time around, Bradley said: “It hasn’t happened, but we have been given guidelines in terms of what we’ve all seen in the European Championships.
“That will carry into our European games, little aspects like speaking to the referee. That can only be from the team captain and any other player will be a bookable offence.
“We’ll see those little changes come into European competition, which I don’t think is a bad thing for the game. But it may take a bit of getting used to, so hopefully the referee takes that into consideration.”
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