Shelbourne see Champions League hopes dashed after late Qarabag double
There is little in football that can deliver a gut-punch like the blow delivered to Shelbourne in the closing stages of their Champions League clash with Qarabag on Wednesday night.
In the ascendancy and chasing an equaliser against their experienced opponents, the Azeris delivered a one-two that ended the League of Ireland side's hopes of progressing in Europe's top-tier competition.
As things stood, with nine minutes remaining, there was still some drama to be played out next week in Azerbaijan.
The Reds would have taken heart from their reaction to Leandro Andrade's early opener, in how they tightened up defensively and created openings of their own.
Then their second-half performance had their opponents on the back-foot, as their aggressive attacking play clearly had them rattled.
Tolka Park was bouncing and the visitors' clear discomfort led to them doing what they could to disrupt Shelbourne's momentum and run down the clock, including lengthy stoppages with players hitting the turf and seeking the comfort of the physio's sponge.
And then the first blow to silence the Riverside and all but end Shels' interest in the Champions League - a goal against the run of play.
Four minutes later, a messy third for Qarabag and the tie was done.
Joey O'Brien's men were always going to be up against it, taking on a team packed with European experience and with a handful of internationals.
But with a drop into the Europa League now on the horizon, barring the most incredible of turnarounds, where they will take on the losers of Croatian side HNK Rijeka of Croatia and Ludogorets from Bulgaria, they will be all the better for this experience.
The game kicked off at a frantic pace, with a noisy home crowd getting right behind their team. Possibly too frantic for O'Brien's liking, as his side was open defensively and vulnerable.
And 12 minutes in, they were behind to Andrade's opener.
The Cape Verde international ended up benefitting from a poor ball, which should have teed up teammate Abdellah Zoubir, by grabbing the glory himself.
He accelerated onto a heavy Kameron Ledwidge touch and raced down the right, spotted Zoubir unmarked in the centre but overhit his pass inside.
Zoubir chased the ball out to the left, held it up for the overlapping run of Tural Bayramov, and found him with a delightful pass inside Evan Caffrey.
Bayramov looked up, spotted Andrade and slid the ball to the 25-year-old, who tapped it home from three yards.
The initial pass aside, the goal highlighted the blistering pace, movement and precision that has seen the Azerbaijani champions play group stage football in each of the last 11 seasons.
Shels did their best to play on the front-foot and disrupt their opponents' fluid attacking play, and they should have had the lead goal prior to Andrade's strike.
But while the woodwork denied Sean Gannon a first ever European goal, a cleaner strike by the defender would have put the Reds in front.
Harry Woods' corner drifted all the way to Ali Coote at the back post, he turned it back inside and Tyreke Wilson's flying header rebounded off a defender to Gannon.
He swung at the ball on the six-yard line, but his left-foot connection wasn't clean and the ball spun onto the post, and Wilson sent the rebound over.
In truth, that was a rare first-half opening for Shels, while Qarabag had chances through Kady, one of four Brazilians in their starting-11, skipper Zoubir, and Nariman Akhundzade, who rattled the crossbar.
It was a different story in the second-half, which started with three promising Shelbourne attacks in quick succession.
The first had Wood and Mipo Odubeko stretching in vain to connect with a low James Norris centre.
Moments later, Woods was unmarked at the back post as Kerr McInroy hooked the ball across, but he got his calculations wrong and hit nothing but fresh air.
Chance number three saw Coote's promising 20-yard shot take a wicked deflection, sending the ball just wide of the target.
Goalkeeper Lorcan Healy, who did well to claw away an Emmanuel Addai header, was sharp again on 67 minutes to get down to his left and keep out an Andrade shot on the turn.
Shels continued to press and defender Paddy Barrett was surely attempting a cross when his delivery curled onto the crossbar.
But then despair for the hosts in the 81st minute, as Andrade race behind defence, clipped his shot over Healy and onto the post, and sub Olexiy Kashchuk dispatched the rebound.
Their misery was compounded four minutes later when Ledwidge and Healy were on different wavelengths; the defender headed the ball over his keeper and Akhundzade poked the ball home from a yard out. Teams and Player Ratings
SHELBOURNE
Lorcan Healy 7
Sean Gannon 6
Kameron Ledwidge 6
Paddy Barrett 7
Evan Caffrey 6
JJ Lunney 7
Kerr McInroy 6
Tyreke Wilson 6
Ali Coote 6
Harry Wood 7
Mipo Odubeko 6
SUBS:
James Norris (for Wilson 18) 7
Mark Coyle (for Gannon 46) 6
John Martin (for Coote 66) 6
John O'Sullivan (for Caffrey 66) 6
Sean Boyd (for Odubeko 77)
QARABAG
Fabijan Buntic 6
Dani Bolt 6
Behlul Mustafazade 6
Matheus Silva 6
Toral Bayramov 6
Pedro Bicalho
Kady 6
Emmanuel Addai 6
Leandro Andrade 6
Abdellah Zoubir 6
Nariman Akhundzade 6
SUBS:
Abbas Huseynov (for Bolt 76)
Olexiy Kashchuk (for Andrade 77)
Musa Gurbanli (for Akhundzade 87)
Elvin Jafarguliyev (for Zoubir 87)
REFEREE: Ante Culiina (Croatia)
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