Late Mark Doyle strike keeps St Pats' European dreams alive
Mark Doyle salvaged St Patrick's Athletic's European hopes with a crucial late goal as the Saints fell to a narrow defeat at the hands of F91 Diddeleng in the first leg of the Europa Conference League first round qualifier on Wednesday night.
Goals in either half from Oege-Sietse Van Lingen and Yahcuroo Roemer looked enough to sink the Saints, who failed to impress their plans on this game. However, Doyle popped up in the box in the 93rd minute to snatch a hardly deserved lifeline.
The result means two losses from two for Irish clubs in Europe this season, with Shamrock Rovers losing to Icelandic opposition on Tuesday night.
The last minute goal sparked wild celebrations among the 350 boisterous Pats fans, who travelled through London and Brussels to take over this small leafy suburb just north of the French border.
They can still harbour hopes of more European trips this year – that is if Pats can muster a win next Thursday in Inchicore where progression will guarantee €550,000 in Uefa prize money.
Only starting their pre-season campaign, F91 didn't appear as rusty Jon Daly and his side would have hoped.
The game failed to settle as the home side chased every ball, committing a flurry of fouls in the process. This, it turned out, was Diddeleng's game plan throughout and it proved successful at stunting Pats' efforts to build up the play.
Both sides were limited to half chances, but it was the home duo of Samir Hadji and Van Lingen that looked most dangerous.
And it was the latter who opened the scoring on 24 minutes. Lingering in the space between his midfield and strikers, Sylvio Ouassiero picked out Van Lingen just inside the box and the Dutch man made no mistake, finding the bottom corner on his debut.
The home side continued to push forward after the restart with the second goal arriving just after the hour mark. Captain Bruno Freire won possession in midfield and caught Pats sleeping when he released Roemer down the right wing.
David Norman – making his first Saints start – engaged in the foot race but couldn't catch the 21-year-old, who comfortably struck past Lyness.
Daly introduced Tommy Lonergan, Mark Doyle and Jason McLelland to add sparks to a struggling attacking line-up.
And, ultimately, it was the Saints who had the last chance of the game, Doyle duly taking his opportunity to ignite jubilant celebrations in a small corner of this hill-top ground.
F91 Diddeleng: D Desprez; K Delorge, V Decker, I Sidibe; S Ouassiero (Y Schaus, 74), O Van Lingen (I Englaro, 90), B Freire, E Agovic, D Kuete Nsidjine; Y Roemer (M Thomas, 72), S Hadji.
St Patrick’s Athletic: D Lyness; H Brockbank (N Lewis, 80), S Curtis, D Norman, A Breslin; J Lennon, A Murphy (J McLelland, 81), C Forrester; B McCormack (T Lonergan, 70), J Mulraney; C Carty (M Doyle, 81).
Referee: Radoslav Gidzhenov (Bulgaria).
