HISTORY BECKONS FOR Stephen Bradley in the UEFA Conference League.
He also has a chance to enhance his reputation on a stage that could elevate his own career.
A different kind of future can be imagined when you deliver in Europe.
Bradley will become the first League of Ireland manager to take charge of a club in two separate European campaigns when Shamrock Rovers host APOEL at Tallaght Stadium tonight.
In 2022 he guided the Hoops into the group stage of this competition. A reboot of all three tiers by the governing body means this latest achievement comes with a twist. The new system has done away with the traditional four-team home and away group fixtures, instead offering up six individual opponents within the 36-team league phase.
The top eight will qualify automatically for the knockout stages with teams placed ninth to 24th entering a play-off round.
“It does just make you go and attack every game. You have the licence to do that if you have the league format because no one knows for sure how many points it’s going to take to get a play-off or to qualify, I really like the format,” Bradley said.
The Cypriots are first up here, followed by a very local European derby in Larne at Windsor Park at the end of this month. November brings the visit of Welsh champions The New Saints before taking on Rapid Vienna in Austria, while December begins with FK Borac of Bosnia and Herzegovina arriving in Dublin.
London awaits the week before Christmas with a glamour tie against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge – albeit the Premier League giants have excluded the likes of Cole Palmer, Romeo Lavia and Wesley Fofana from their Conference League squad.
“I think if we want to keep the elite as elites, I think the competition should have stayed the way it was previous. But the way it has opened up now, it’s showing clubs what they need to do to take that next step and push on,” Bradley said.
The same goes for coaches and managers.
His opposite number is Jose Dominguez, a familiar face and name for some given he played one season for Birmingham City under Barry Fry in 1994-95, helped mentor a young Cristiano Ronaldo when he returned to Sporting Lisbon for a couple of seasons before becoming the first Portuguese to play in the Premier League when he joined Tottenham Hotspur in 1997.
Dominguez described the way Rovers play as “peculiar and interesting” and expects it to be “a game of cat and mouse because they are something different than we are used to.”
Priorities will differ across the board, and for Bradley this latest adventure takes on a different kind of significance to the one two years ago. Rovers were battling for the three-in-a-row of Premier Division titles when they were drawn with Djurgården, Gent and Molde.
As domestic matters took precedence and Rovers set about establishing total dominance, the European campaign was a luxury that could not be indulged. The two-point haul was an indication of that.
Fast forward to now and the landscape is somewhat different.
The Rovers boss doesn’t turn 40 until 19 November, slap bang in the middle of those games with TNS and Rapid. By that point, Bradley may also have made even more domestic history given Rovers can close the gap on league leaders Shelbourne with a win against Damien Duff’s side this Sunday.
The significance of that clash at Tallaght Stadium 72 hours after this European milestone was not lost on him, but Bradley’s focus is clear.
“We always just face the game ahead of us,” he said.
In pretty much any other country, a homegrown manager who wins their domestic top flight four times in a row, with that European qualification and also a league and cup double thrown in for good measure, would be under serious consideration for their national team’s job.
Especially if it was a country floundering, or one that went the nine months searching for a replacement for the man who they parted company with last November.
Maybe the timing and identity of that previous international boss was the problem. The FAI seemed to want the antithesis to Stephen Kenny in an attempt to cleanse themselves of responsibility. His rise with Dundalk, and how they captured the imagination in the Europa League in 2016, was the catalyst for Kenny’s rise.
Bradley will have to follow suit if – and it is an if – his ambition is to follow Kenny’s lead.
“I’m not bothered about how people view me, to be honest. I understand what I’m good at and what I need to improve on. We’re all getting better,” he said.
“This is a nice challenge regardless of people’s opinions on the outside. That doesn’t even come into my thinking. It’s about picking the right team, setting up the right way and make the right changes at the right time to win the game. It’s as simple as that, sticking to our principle and philosophy as much as possible while respecting what we’re up against.
Rovers have already endured and enjoyed the qualifying pathway that last two rounds in the Champions League before a thrilling comeback against Celje in the Europa League secured a clash with PAOK in the play-off.
It was a step too far to reach the second tier but this stage still offers the chance to showcase Bradley’s talents as a progressive coach who can also inspire his players to embrace history.
Crucially, Rovers won’t face the same kind of congestion pressures this time around as they did in ’22 when the strength of starting XIs in Europe had to be diluted to maintain an element of freshness for battles on the home front.
Four of the six league phase games will take place after the Premier Division season finishes on 1 November.
Even the journey up the M1 to Windsor Park to face Larne comes six days after Rovers face Drogheda.
For captain Roberto Lopes, who has a double header of AFCON qualifiers with Cape Verde against Botswana next week, the schedule is hotting up for club and country.
“I love it. It’s what you look forward to and where you strive to be as a footballer. It’s brilliant, it’s a real carrot for you, can you go and compete at the highest level possible. What better way to do it then at home here in Tallaght Stadium in front of a packed out ground?
“You can feel the energy, a sense of the unknown.”
Bradley steps into it with the future about to become clearer.
Live – UEFA Conference League: Shamrock Rovers v APOEL, Premier Sports, 8pm.
