KAA Gent 3 Shamrock Rovers 0
Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe is cursed that his sorcery exists at the same time as Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard. Two years older than the Belgium megastars, this native son of Gent won the last of three caps as a sub for Hazard way back in 2011.
Ghana, his mother country, were the real losers.
Shamrock Rovers will never forget the name. Maybe the memory of his exquisite first goal would have faded but the second, Gent’s third, deserves a place among the best Matt Le Tissier ever conjured at The Dell.
That he spent the celebratory huddle berating one of his team-mates for an earlier error says everything about the chasm between these clubs.
The current Rovers generation have to suffer on Belgian, Hungarian, Bulgarian fields so the next crop can experience life beyond the Europa Conference group stages. This was another one of those punitive occasions.
Done by their fragile mindset away from Tallaght, it still needed slick finishing from Hugo Cuypers and Odjidja-Ofoe for the contest to be cooked and served inside 18 minutes.
Two-nil down and far from home, Rovers dug deep into their foxholes. In that sense, Stephen Bradley will take some solace from the final score. And regret the chances that went begging.
Let’s begin on a cheerier note; the origin story of KAA Gent’s nickname. The club crest is a Native American chieftain (think Sitting Bull, which is odd in a time when the Washington Redskins were forced to become the Washington Commandos). Anyway, the idea came directly from Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Circus visiting the medieval town during the 1900s. The locals liked what they saw and culturally appropriated it to their hearts content to this very day.
‘Da Buffalos’ roam across a modern prairie. The Ghelamco Arena is a compact 20,000 seater stadium, with a pharmacy and other delights carved into its underbelly, completed back in 2013 when Irish football, on the surface, was hardly in the doldrums. The fan experience is excellent with a sunken pitch beneath ultras and spacious corporate suites up in the gods.
Truth be told, every trip on the football circuit, from Baku to Helsinki, Luxembourg to Gent, makes the return to decrepit Irish facilities a little mortifying.
At least the League of Ireland champions were beginning to hold pace in Europe’s lightweight division.
That theory was temporarily quashed after eight minutes of competitive action. Cuypers’s sixth goal of the season was largely his own doing, at first glance, as Malick Fofana found him off a delicious chip from South Korea’s Hyunseok Hong. The Belgian centre forward controlled in traffic before sliding a shot past Alan Mannus.
Rovers had done next to nothing wrong. But the goal’s origin came from a tiny rip in the fabric of their 5-4-1 approach as Kenyan international Joseph Okumu glided away from Rory Gaffney to find Odjidja-Ofoe. The skipper carries all 33 years of weight, yet still looked light years beyond the intellect of a savvy Rovers midfield. He spun on a six pence and switched the play. The spectacular was to follow but his swerving hips controlled the tempo until the old fox took his leave on 67 minutes.
Rovers stuck to their principles and paid the price on 17 minutes following shambolic play by Daniel Cleary. It came from nothing. Mannus went short to Cleary but the former Liverpool Academy recruit made a hames of possession, allowing Cuypers to dispossess him before a lucky block deflected the ball for Odjidja-Ofoe to scissor-kick into the net.
The rest was very much a case of learning on a job Rovers are not equipped to finish. Even Jack Byrne was uncomfortable in possession as the five second rule, whenever Gent lost the ball, was in full effect. Seán Kavanagh needed to replace Chris McCann at half-time.
Gaffney’s instinctive effort helped 1,000 travelling supporters find their voice after the break, as Paul Nardi pawed shot away for a Rovers corner.
The second Odjidja-Ofoe goal was simple and magnificent in equal measure, playing a one-two with Fofana before rifling an outside of the right shot to the top corner.
Gaffney and teenage sub Justin Ferizaj will rue missed chances late on but it would not have mattered in a game that belonged to one man, out there all on his own.
Bob Marley’s “don’t worry, everything gonna be alright” blaring on the PA at full-time felt like a little salt in the Rovers wound. Norway next but not before Derry City take a chunk out of them in Sunday’s FAI Cup quarter-final at the Brandywell.
GENT: Nardi; Okumu, Ngadeu-Ngadjui, Torunarigha (Godeau, 46); Castro-Montes, Kums (Fortuna, 77), Hong (Hjulsager, 67), Hauge; Odjidja-Ofoe (Owusu, 67), Fofana (Depoitre, 67); Cuypers.
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Mannus; Gannon, Cleary, Grace; Finn (Farrugia, 75), McCann (Kavanagh, 46), Byrne (Ferizjai, 75), O’Neill, Lyons; Watts (Greene, 66), Gaffney (Burke, 75).
Referee: Visar Kastrati (Kosovo).
