For Dundalk, this defeat was a victory. It may sound like a condescending way of dealing with their defeat to Legia Warsaw at Lansdowne Road on Wednesday, but a Champions League play-off was their great achievement.
For much of the night, it did seem like more was possible against an ordinary side, but even if Aleksandar Prijovic’s injury-time goal was the moment when Dundalk’s hopes of reaching the group stages ended, it was still extraordinary that they were here at all.
On Tuesday, Stephen Kenny had issued a rallying cry which also seemed to strike a note of resistance against the way football has gone.
“Were we to progress that really would be a sensational result and would give hope to every club in Ireland and every small club in Europe.”
Kenny said over two legs any team can win a football tie and while that may be true, usually it is the clubs with the greater resources who do the winning. Dundalk had knocked out BATE Borisov to get to this stage, a club, as Kenny pointed out, ranked 295 places above his side.
VIDEO: Class act Martin O'Neill visited Dundalk's European heroes in their dressing room https://t.co/8SC32udoBh
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 3, 2016
Their victory in Tallaght was a remarkable triumph which has captured the imagination of the country, but Dundalk had enough on their plate without being responsible for broadening the audience of the game as well.
Those who showed up at the Dublin Arena – they couldn’t call it the Aviva because it was a Champions League game, but what was wrong with Lansdowne Road? – watched a side of skill and purpose take the game to Legia Warsaw. They watched them keep playing after they went a goal down to a Nemanja Nikolic penalty. And they kept playing and looking for an equaliser before Prijovic sealed the victory and the tie with a second goal.
Legia did nothing to suggest Dundalk couldn’t get an away goal in Poland. But there are lots of reasons why a turnaround would be one of the most remarkable things ever to happen in football.
Nearly thirty thousand tickets were sold for Wednesday’s game, but the hope that even more would show up on the night seemed to diminish as the rain fell heavily for a couple of hours before kick-off. It looked like it had kept some of those who had tickets away too, but long queues outside for those who had turned up looking to buy a ticket suggested that poor organisation was keeping them out. People were still arriving 30 minutes into the game, by which stage there was a healthy crowd.
A lot of fans are pissed off with how Dundalk's Champions League play-off was organised https://t.co/FcdwRobdyv
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 17, 2016
Legia, Polish champion in three of the past four seasons and with nine internationals in their starting line-up, had a pedigree to fear. But they were caught on the counter-attack a couple of times in a first half when Dundalk had displayed the qualities which led Kenny to believe that this shouldn’t be the end of their ambitions.
Dundalk’s ‘keeper Gary Rogers didn’t make save in the opening 30 minutes, while Patrick Barrett and Andy Boyle read most things that happened in front of them. Legia seemed uncertain too, Nikolic miscontrolling when the ball reached him in the box.
Dundalk looked the better side, which was hopeful in the context of the tie, but which also could be the starting point for another conversation about what could be achieved in Irish football.
At their most extreme, discussions about the merits of the League of Ireland can sometimes seem like one of the most tiresome battles in a culture war between two sides convinced their opponents have no redeemable qualities whatsoever. The idea that people are free to do what they want in their spare time seems to elude those who moralise, while the self-evident fact that Irish football would be in much better condition if it had a thriving domestic league is lost on the extremists from the other group.
This was a night where none of that really mattered. As Dundalk took the game to Legia, there was a common purpose and a recognition of Kenny’s ambition as it was reflected in the performance.
His ambitions may have already been met, but you wouldn’t have guessed it. Daryl Horgan on the left and Patrick McEleney were lively all evening.
But the penalty changed everything. There was no doubt it came off Boyle’s arm and it was hard decision to get angry about. Dundalk kept going, but things were more abstract after that.
They had half-chances and moments of invention. They kept pushing forward as they tried to pull off the extraordinary. But they had already managed that before a ball was kicked.
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