Two halves - Rovers European adventure in focus

"Soccer history"; "Cracked Irish football's glass ceiling"; "Incredible night".

"Successfully breezed through"; "Another great League of Ireland night"; "Group stages confirmed".

The tone of the headlines has simmered down a little since Shamrock Rovers' initial breakthrough to European group stage football in the 11 years since 2011. Then, Stephen O’Donnell’s winner felt akin to Neil Armstrong’s foot landing on the moon. The win in Macedonia seems a little more like Elon Musk sending tourists into space.

Some of the credit for this must be given to Irish clubs improved performance in Europe. As well as this Shamrock Rovers team, Dundalk achieved similar success twice in the last five years. More recently, Bohemians, Sligo Rovers and St. Pat’s have all beaten higher ranked opposition.

However, the introduction of the Europa Conference League, designed to give more teams the chance of group stage football, has increased opportunities for leagues like ours. When Shamrock Rovers entered the group stage in 2011, they did so as the lowest ranked team to advance that far. This time, they are ranked 22nd of the 32 in this competition.

Back then, 20 league champions made it to group stages of either the Champions or Europa League. This year there will be 35 across the three competitions.

How did they get here?

In their first tie of the year, at home to Hibernians of Malta, they scored more goals than in all their European ties, home or away, in the 1980s. That 3-0 win and a 3-1 win over Macedonia's Shkupi both came at home and they set up the two aggregate victories they had. Before this year, they had only scored three or more goals four times in 84 continental games.

Shamrock rovers have advanced with a 100% home record which only