Shamrock Rovers ready to face Ferencvaros for second year running

Shamrock Rovers face a very tough task when they take on Ferencvaros in Europe for the second year running.

The five-in-a-row Hungarian champions have made played group stage football in each of the last four seasons – the Champions League in 2020 and Europa League on the other three occasions.

Defeat in the tie would see Rovers exit out of Europe after just four games, compared with a 14 match campaign last season, and would see them earn less than a quarter of the €4m they banked from their European run last year.

Having exited the Champions League last week to Icelandic side Breidablik, the Hoops lost 1-0 away against ten man Dundalk in the FAI Cup on Sunday but Stephen Bradley believes his team can turn their recent poor results around. They are without a win in their last five competitive games.

“I love what I saw on Sunday in terms of performance,” said Bradley speaking in Budapest in the team hotel on the eve of the game.

“We’ve come off the back of a disappointing result in Iceland and we've gone up there and been really really good for large parts of the game.”

The Hoops have only scored one goal in their last five games and they will be without Rory Gaffney, Jack Byrne, Neil Farrugia and Trevor Clarke for this Europa Conference League second round qualifier all due to injury.

In the Europa League play-off last season Rovers lost the first leg to Ferencvaros in Budapest 4-0 before winning the return leg 1-0 and Bradley believes the knowledge built up from last season will help his Hoops side.

“It helps that we've been here last year. We've seen them first hand, the stadium, the pitch. It makes it easier as we are going into an environment that we know. We are going up against a top team, we know that but we know