ST PATRICK'S Athletic manager John McDonnell feels the club did about as well as it could have hoped to in yesterday's draw for the second qualifying round of the Uefa Cup after being paired with IF Elfsborg of Sweden.
The Dubliners will travel for the first leg, which will be played on the 14th of this month, before taking the Swedes on two weeks later at home.
"I'm going to go over and see them on Monday do I'd be able to give a more informed opinion after that, but at first glance you'd have to say that it could have been worse," he said.
"My hunch would be that the likes of Brondby or FC Copenhagen would have been tougher and certainly Aston Villa would have been. So hopefully it will prove a good draw for us."
Whatever about the quality of the opposition, McDonnell says he is happy to be playing the away leg first.
"If you can go away and get something then it always gives you great confidence coming back home," he said. "My only concern is that they play on a synthetic pitch but I'll have a look at that when I'm over there and chat to a few people about it. I'm hoping it won't be too big a factor but it is a bit of a concern at this stage."
The Swedes currently lie second in their league, one point behind Kalmar and three ahead of Helsingborgs with 16 rounds of games played. They reached this stage of the competition via the Intertoto Cup in which they beat SPL side Hibernian 4-0 on aggregate before squeezing past FK Riga, who had beaten Bohemians in the previous round, by a goal to nil over two legs.
Having won the league in 2006, they beat Linfield in last year's Champions League qualifying rounds and later reached the group stages of the Uefa Cup.
The team, which is coached by Magnus Haglund, contains a handful of international players including Anders Svensson, Teddy Lucic and Fredrik Berglund.
In the Champions League, Drogheda United will meet Spartak Moscow if they can overturn the 2-1 deficit incurred in Tuesday's game against Dynamo Kiev when the two sides meet again next Wednesday.
It's a tall order, though, and not a scenario that Spartak chief executive Sergei Shavlo seems to have given too much thought to.
"I'm very happy with the draw," he said yesterday.
"We have an unforgettable derby from Soviet times (Dynamo won 13 titles compared to their rivals' 12). I am sure that this match will draw a lot of supporters."
"The consensus," he continued, "is that starting at home is a disadvantage but I don't think that this is the case this time. Dynamo will come to Moscow to play attacking football, and we will not sit back and defend in Kiev either. I think we're in for a couple of uncompromising matches. The chances are 50-50."
St Patrick's Athletic officials expect the members of the tribunal held yesterday to consider the club's decision to terminate Michael Keane's contract as a result of what the club saw as his failure to achieve the required levels of fitness to deliver their decision in about two weeks' time.
