St Patrick’s Athletic 0-0 Odense BK
Thursday, 19 July 2007 22:34
St Patrick’s Athletic’s chances of progressing to the next qualifying round of the UEFA Cup are still very much alive after they played out a scoreless draw with Danish side Odense at Richmond Park writes Mark Cummins.
In truth, the visitors had the better of the scoring chances with Bechara Oliveira going close on several occasions.
Pat’s started well with Anthony Murphy and Ryan Guy both having very early chances.
The sides meet again in a fortnight, with Pat’s still very much in contention.
Pat’s were up against from the start considering OB packed their back-four with several six footers, not to mention 104-times capped former AC Milan star Thomas Helveg. But they acquitted themselves well.
On two minutes Keith Fahey swung in a tremendous ball from the left wing to the well-positioned and unmarked Murphy on the byline. Murphy lashed a cross-come-shot across goal that was too wide to reach the target but also two quick for the inrushing Guy.
Three minutes after that Murphy did find Guy with a well-placed pass but Anders Christensen managed to snatch the ball from Guy’s foot.
In between that Bolanos lashed over Barry Ryan’s crossbar from outside the box with a long drive that ended up at the back of the new 900-seater Inchicore-end stand.
Pat’s Mark Quigley had the first shot on target in the match on 11 minutes but Arek Onyszko made a clean save.
Bechara Oliveira took a free for OB on 11 minutes but it took a deflection off Johan Absolansen and flew wide.
Bolanos again tried his luck from distance, this time from the left, but again found the back of the new seated area rather than his intended target.
Bolanos was looking lively and had another chance, this time a header on 24 minutes. The ball had Ryan beaten but appeared to be going across the face of goal. Murphy popped up to head it on its way into touch.
It was all OB for the rest of the half with that man Bolanos losing his marker in the box on 38 only for Dave Rogers to dispossess him. From the resulting corner Ryan saved a point-blank header from giant Ulrik Laursen.
A fairly clean half was only marred on 42 when Absolansen was yellow carded for a tough tackle on Darragh Maguire.
The second period started at much the same frenetic pace that the first had enjoyed. St Pat’s, playing a 3-5-2 formation, sprayed the ball around the park with the low evening sun blazing straight into their eyes the only hindrance.
Pat’s boss Johnny McDonnell freshened things up just after the hour mark when he introduced David Mulcahy for Michael Keane who had performed heroics again for Pat’s since arriving in the July transfer window.
They were seeing plenty of the ball but the problem was that they didn’t appear to be able to do much with it when they got it.
A few sloppy passes combined with some excellent Danish defending restricted the Saints to very little in the way of goalmouth action.
Not that OB were fairing any better. In fact, the one thing that Pat’s were doing right was breaking down OB onslaughts in and around the halfway line resulting in OB having to unleash more of those long-range efforts that Bolanos had tried earlier.
Bolanos and Laursen both tried that but failed to trouble Ryan.
St Patrick’s Athletic: Ryan, Brennan, Maguire, Rogers, Fahey, Keane (Mulcahy 63), Gibson (Foley 88), Murphy, M Quigley, Guy ( O’Connor 90+2) Paisley.
Odense BK: Onysszko, Laursen, A Christensen, Helveg, Oliveira (Andreasen 77), Absalonsen, Hansen, Jensen, K Christensen (Timm 80), Bolanos, Borring.
Ref: F Fautrel (Fra)