STEPHEN BRADLEY HAS not given up hope of salvaging Shamrock Rovers’ Champions League dream despite a 2-0 defeat to Sparta Prague in the first-leg of their second-round qualifying tie.

The Hoops boss lamented Neil Farrugia’s missed chance in the first half before a mistake playing out from the back led to the visitor’s taking the lead.

“At 2-0 the tie is not over. If you get the first goal, anything is possible.

“We will go there to try and win the game. We know they are a good team but if we perform like we did tonight, anything is possible.

“I thought we were excellent, playing against a top level team,” he continued.

“On another night we take those opportunities and you might have a different outcome, but at that level (Sparta) will get chances and usually top teams take them..

“But Neil was brilliant. He should have scored early on and that was the only fault, but he gave us power and pace and he was excellent.

“He should have scored and didn’t need to take the touch. He should have put it in first time. At this level you need to take your chances as they are really small margins.”

Prague head coach Lars Friis was understandably pleased with the result and the application of his players given they are still in pre-season.

“We set up against a team set-up really well by Stephen Bradley. They caused us problems,” he said.

“The way we treated the ball, I was quite happy. Only when we made mistakes did they become dangerous.

“The result is a good one. We are halfway there. It was exactly as difficult as we expected.

“Also, the picture of the game. We thought we would have a lot on the ball and take care of the counters and defensively we did really well.

“Today, the most important thing is to win, that’s really important, but also to get minutes for the players.

“We have not achieved anything yet.”