St Patrick's Athletic Face a Tough Task in Istanbul as They Seek Historic European Qualification

St Patrick's Athletic face a tough assignment in their final tilt at qualifying for the Conference League group stages tonight. Stephen Kenny's side are in Istanbul to face Basaksehir, with the game standing at nil-all from the first leg. There's also €3.6 million in prize money on offer if they come away from Turkey with a win tonight. Kick-off is at 5pm.

It’s evening time in Istanbul and St Patrick’s Athletic are getting used to their new surroundings when a shout comes from Brian Gartland. ‘Have f**king confidence!’, roars the Saints assistant coach, who is busy putting the team through their paces at the Basaksehir Fatih Terim Stadium. For Jake Mulraney, confidence is one thing, but “a new lease of life” is another, as he puts it. That’s what he has found since Stephen Kenny took the reins at Richmond Park in May.

It’s the evening before the club’s huge Conference League play-off second leg against Istanbul Basaksehir. St Pat’s are looking to make history and qualify for a European group stage for the first time. In overcoming Liechtenstein’s FC Vaduz and Azerbaijan outfit Sabah before last week’s 0-0 first-leg draw, Kenny has led the Inchicore side to five successive games unbeaten in Europe.

Mulraney has had a front-row seat for the Dubliner’s return to League of Ireland management and he has loved what he has seen. “He’s been brilliant for me. You can see why he has gone on and been so successful, and why he got the Ireland job, you can see exactly why,” says Mulraney, speaking to the Irish Independent at the Saints’ Istanbul base. “His man-management is brilliant and tactically he’s very good. It’s just been a new lease of life for myself, him coming in. You feel the trust. My performances were just a bit up and down under Jon [Daly, Kenny’s predecessor]. I was in and out of the team, which was fair enough. But with the way we’re playing now, we’re a bit braver. We’re going to try and score, and not worry about the opposition. The last two or three games [in Europe], he hasn’t cared who it is, it’s mad like. It’s just about, ‘we’re going to score’. I love that. I love that bravery. When he talks, you listen. You know what he has done in the league and then went on to manage the national team for a long time. You know that he knows what he’s talking about.”

This summer has been Mulraney’s second European campaign with the Saints since returning home to Dublin from the MLS in January 2023. Citing family reasons for the move back to home soil, the winger offered a candid insight into the realities some players face in the United States’ top flight. “Things took a bit of a mad turn in the States,” admits the ex-Ireland U-21 cap, who signed for Atlanta in 2020 after eight years playing in the UK. “We were enjoying it but then I got traded to Orlando out of the blue. You get a call on a Wednesday, then you’re in Orlando on the Friday when your family are left in Atlanta. It was just too much. My first question was, ‘what’s happening with my girls?’. They just say, ‘look, we have traded you, that’s that’. You don’t really have a say. It’s completely out of your hands. We decided to come home a few months later.”

Mulraney and his young family are loving life back in Dublin, but this week he’s a long way from Inchicore as, on the edge of the continent, he’s hoping to help the Saints make history. With Basaksehir’s squad worth an estimated €50m, boasting senior international players, and having played European group-stage football in four of the last seven seasons, the 28-year-old says it would be huge to get over the line. And not just for the club, but for the whole of Irish football. “My ma showed me a poll that was going around, which said we had a 4pc chance of going through,” he laughs. “For Irish football in general it would be a huge statement. You see the likes of the gaffer [Kenny], Damien Duff, there are people who go on about wanting to improve Irish football and I think it would be a huge statement to have two League of Ireland teams in European group-stage football. The league is screaming out for it, screaming out for help. The quality is there but the facilities aren’t. If we had four or five Tallaght Stadiums the standards would go through the roof. It [the lack of TV coverage for Irish sides in Europe] is disappointing. I saw the other day that they [RTÉ] had a Champions League qualifier on instead, but help your own, you know what I mean? It just doesn’t make sense to me. First and foremost this is for St Pat’s, but then yeah, in a way after that it’s for Irish football.”

But personally, what would it mean? “It would be my greatest achievement in my career,” he smiles. History awaits.

St Patrick’s Athletic have a chance to create their own slice of European history when they face Istanbul Basaksehir in the second leg of their Conference League Play-Off on Wednesday evening (kick-off is at 5pm Irish Time). The Saints have never reached the group stages of a European competition before having previously lost play-offs in the Uefa Cup and Europa League in 2008 and 2009 respectively. But boss Stephen Kenny has reached the Europa League group stages before with Dundalk in 2016. And his Athletic side are well in the tie ahead of Wednesday’s second leg having drawn the first leg 0-0 at Tallaght Stadium last Thursday.

The game will be available to view on Solidsport at a cost of €10 via the link here.

Istanbul Basaksehir

One-time Turkish Super League champions, Istanbul Basaksehir take on the Saints as red-hot favourites to advance. The Turks won their domestic league for the first time during the 2019-20 Covid-19 hit season. That saw them advance to the Champions League proper in the 2020-21 campaign, in which they created history by defeating English Premier League giants Manchester United 2-1 at home. Since then, they reached the last-16 stage of the Conference League in the 2022-23 season before bowing out against Belgian side Gent 5-2 on aggregate. But they topped their group during the campaign, most notably beating Fiorentina 3-0 at home. While the likes of former Premier League strikers Demba Ba and Emmanuel Adebayor have played for them before, they have a new crop of players set to face the Saints. Current striker Krzysztof Piatek is a Polish international and lined out for his country at Euro 2024. Winger Davidson, 33, is from Brazil and has already scored twice in Conference League qualifying. Istanbul have also defeated San Marino minnows La Fiorita and Georgians Iberia 1899 to reach this stage of the competition. Their manager is Çağdaş Atan, a two-time Turkish international who has been in charge since 2023.

St Patrick’s Athletic

Kenny admits the Saints have it all to do if they are to reach the group stages of the Conference League on Wednesday evening. The Athletic have upset the odds to reach this stage of the competition after seeing off Vaduz of Liechtenstein and Azerbaijani side Sabah in the previous two rounds. And they competed well in last week’s first leg with a creditable 0-0 draw in front of over 6,000 fans at Tallaght Stadium. The Saints will be without the services of injured pair Romal Palmer and Cian Kavanagh for the second leg at the 17,319-capacity Başakşehir Fatih Terim Stadium. But a home crowd of only 5,000 is expected at the venue, with a further 100 travelling Saints set to descend on the Istanbul venue. “They have been champions of Turkey and been in the Champions League group stages and been in successive group stages of European competition, so they would be strong favourites,” Kenny said during his pre-match press conference. “From our point of view at St Patrick’s Athletic, it’s an opportunity to get into the group stages for the first time in our history as a club and that’s a big incentive. It would make a big difference to the players for their careers, for their lives, so we anticipate a tough game, but we are ready for the challenge.”