Tottenham v Shamrock Rovers live! | Paolo Bandini
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27 mins "Presumably you've seen the old story about the Football Manager player who applied for the Middlesbrough job," asks Simon Davis as McCabe receives a quick throw-in on the right and thumps a 25-yard effort comfortably wide of the near post. I have indeed, Simon, but it bears revisiting. Steve Gibson earned himself huge respect from a good many fans for taking the time to respond, though I have always wondered if he subsequently got hundreds more such letters from others hoping for a similar note.
26 mins Pavlyuchenko's near-post jab is knocked behind for another corner, but this one is hoofed clear emphatically by Murray.
25 mins It's been a lively start for Danny Rose down the left and he wins another corner for Tottenham here - breaking into space on the left but seeing his cross deflected behind off a defender ...
22 mins Pavlyuchenkjo is down receiving treatment after his head collided with Paterson's elbow. I know that sounds like some kind of euphemism, but it is actually what happened - the striker slipped as he was trying to change direction inside the box and as fell headfirst into the side of the defender. No suggestion of foul play on either side, and Paterson too receives brief attention from the physio.
20 mins The free-kick comes to nothing, but Tottenham are building up a head of steam here, and Brush is called on to make another fine save just moments later after Pavlyuchenko gets in behind t! he visit ors' defensive line. It was actually a lovely dummy from the striker that set up the chance, drawing Murray out of position as he stepped over a ball travelling across the face of the area, before slipping in behind the Rovers captain to latch onto a throughball in yards of space. Brush is on him in a heartbeat, though, and manages to block the shot with his chest.
18 mins Yellow card for McCabe, who appeared to clip Rose's heels as the Tottenham player surged past him down the left. Tottenham will have a free-kick just about a yard outside the area.
17 mins Tottenham hit the bar! Defoe is played clean through into the area by Giovani Dos Santos, but Brush is off his line sharply and manages to get just enough on the shot to push it up onto the crossbar.
16 mins Not for the first time, the travelling support goad their hosts with a round of "You're supposed to be at home". Or at least I assume that's what they're doing. Perhaps one of their players just snuck out for the evening without their folks knowing.
14 mins Rovers do need to be careful with some of this passing about in front of their own area. Sullivan nearly has the ball picked off his toes by Livermore right on the corner of the Rovers box, but instead the Tottenham player arrives a fraction late and winds up giving away a free-kick instead.
12 mins First real sight of the fit-again Aaron Lennon, who beats his man down the right and lofts a fine cross over to Pavlyuchenko on the far side of the area. Instead of taking the shot on himself, though, the striker tries to lay it off for Defoe, and Sives cuts it out for Shamrock Rovers. An appeal for handball goes up from the Tottenham support, but it's somewhat half-hearted.
11 mins "According to Satellite TV here in the States, Tottenham are playing a team called Shamrock Rollers," notes Geoff Ashworth. "I quite like that name." Indeed, it's rather funky.
! 10 mins A round of Ols rings round White Hart Lane, but it's not from the home support. Instead it is the visiting support gloating as their team hold possession for a few moments, stringing together a few quick passes in front of their own area.
8 mins A free-kick for Tottenham now down near the touchline on the left-hand side, which looked like an ideal spot from which to swing a ball into the area, but by the time Five cut back from a replay it's already been taken short. Rose, who won the free-kick, exchanges passes with Dos Santos but the ball into the area never materialises, and Tottenham lose possession.
6 mins Tottenham put together their best passage of play so far, a quick exchange of passes just outside the box concluding with another Dos Santos effort from just outside the box - this time deflected up and over the bar. The corner is too close to Brush, who plucks it out of the sky without any great fuss.
4 mins Rovers' travelling support are making an impressive racket at White Hart Lane, but perhaps unsurprisingly there are a lot of empty seats throughout the home support section. Hard to get worked up about a competition, I suppose, when your club's manager has rarely seemed especially excited to be in it.
2 mins And it is Tottenham, indeed, who have the first shot of the evening, Brush gathering comfortably enough after Giovani Dos Santos picked up a loose ball about 25 yards out and decided to try his luck. The shot was firmly struck, but pretty much straight at the goalkeeper in the end.
1 min Off we go. Carlo Cudicini is the first keeper to touch the ball, but it's nothing too troubling - just a comfortable slide to gather a loose ball inside the box.
Make-believe magic "Seeing unlikely teams like Shamrock Rovers doing well European competition always makes me drift off to my glory days on Championship/Football Manager," writes Martin. "Cham! pions Le ague final with Northwich Victoria? Happy days." Funnily enough one of my greatest ever memories of pretend management came with Derry City. Reached the Champions League group stage and won at Old Trafford in one of those happy games where your keeper just won't be beaten. Lost 6-0 at Club Brugge and went out bottom of the group, mind.
Rohan Ricketts Has been interviewed by Five before kick-off. My he does always seem like a very happy man. "I'd say maybe a decline club stature," he says when his interviewer rather bluntly asks if he considers his career to be a failure. Is it possible to adjudge your career either way when you're still only 28? Personally I'm not planning to give up hope of my own first international call-up until I'm at least 45.
Team news: As expected, Sbastien Bassong, Aaron Lennon, Giovani Dos Santos, and Roman Pavlyuchenko are all among Tottenham's starting XI, but the more surprising inclusion is Jermain Defoe. A mark of how seriously Harry Redknapp is taking this game, or a sign that he won't be getting the nod to start against Arsenal this weekend? Shamrock Rovers leave the recently acquired former Tottenham midfielder Rohan Ricketts on the bench.
Tottenham: Cudicini, Walker, Corluka, Bassong, Rose, Lennon, Carroll, Livermore, Giovani, Defoe, Pavlyuchenko. Subs: Gomes, Bale, Kaboul, Modric, Falque, Townsend, Kane.
Shamrock Rovers: Brush, Sullivan, Sives, Murray, Rice, O'Donnell, Paterson, Dennehy, Finn, McCabe, Twigg. Subs: Thompson, Stevens, Sheppard, Kilduff, Turner, McCormack, Ricketts.
Referee: Gediminas Mazeika (Lithuania)
Evening all On one side, a team who feel so passionately about this game that they told most of their starters to take the night off. On the other, a team who potentially stand to earn more this evening than they would by winning their own domestic championship.
Three decades r! emoved f rom the heady days of John Giles, Eamon Dunphy and Jim Beglin, Shamrock Rovers are once again revelling in the European stage . Tottenham may be ready to leave this stadium behind, but for Shamrock Rovers a night at White Hart Lane ">is a dream 30 years in the making.
Whether or not Tottenham are the strongest side in this group remains to be proven - especially without their first-choice players - but as Daniel McDonnell reflected in the Irish Independent today, "this is the glamour tie, the Kodak moment". More than 2,500 Rovers fans have made the trip from Dublin, a number that will be swelled further by London's Irish population.
Not that everyone even in Dublin will be cheering them on, of course. While Rovers' status as the underdog and fan-led ownership may make them a romantic choice for the neutral, there are plenty within the capital who would just as soon see the perceived bully boys of Irish football getting a taste of their own medicine.
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