Shelbourne’s ‘brilliant’ home European record examined as Linfield win extends run to 11 games

Joey O’Brien has hailed as “brilliant” Shelbourne’s unbeaten run at home in Europe, which now stretches to 11 games and way back to 2003, when they were last defeated in Dublin.

Not since a 1-0 defeat in 2003 to Olimpija Ljubljana have the Reds lost at home in continental competiton.

It’s some record when you consider that they have played Hajduk Split, Deportivo La Coruna, Lille, Steaua Bucharest and FC Zurich in that run.

O’Brien was delighted to keep it going on Wednesday night against Belfast side Linfield, when Mipo Odubeko’s second-half goal earned the League of Ireland champions a slender first-leg advantage.

“It was brilliant,” said O’Brien. We spoke about our record here as a football club, Shelbourne at home, we spoke about that, our record's fantastic and we wanted to continue that on.

“I just spoke to the lads before the game, just sort of said to them, this is what it's about, this is what you want to be involved in as a kid, playing Champions League football. Don't let this opportunity go by.

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“There's been so much talk about this football club over the last few weeks, about myself, the manager leaving, all that sort of stuff. I wanted the focus to be on them.

“I said to them, ‘At a quarter to eight, make sure you’re ready to rock, go out and do your talking out on the pitch. There's too much noise around this football club. Let's show everyone how good of players we are’.

“And I thought we done that."