A Shamrock Rovers supporter is going to miss his flight home after travelling to see them play Ludogorets on Tuesday evening as authorities prevented him from crossing the Bulgarian/Romanian border over an alleged 'fake passport'.
The border authorities prevented him from crossing into Romania for two hours before reportedly arresting him. His flight home is at 5 pm on Wednesday so with the lengthy travel time required to make it out to their airport he will not be able to make it in time.
The Department of Foreign Affairs told the Irish Mirror : "The Department of Foreign Affairs is aware of reports and is providing consular assistance. As with all cases, the Department does not comment on the details of any specific case."
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On the pitch, Rovers suffered a demoralising 3-0 defeat in the first leg of their second round Champions League qualifier. Just when it looked as if they were on their way home with a daunting but not insurmountable two-goal deficit, substitute Igor Thiago’s 94th minute strike took a double deflection and flew past Alan Mannus.
It was cruel but they only had themselves to blame. From their own free-kick in the left-back position, Rovers tried to play the ball out of defence when a long ball up the pitch was the sensible option.
It resulted in Lee Grace, who took the initial free, getting the ball back under pressure, and his pass forward to Andy Lyons was cut out, allowing Kiril Despodov to cross. Alan Mannus made a brilliant save to stop one effort, but could do nothing as Thiago’s drive came off the head of Sean Hoare and fizzed into the net.
Afterwards a livid Stephen Bradley slammed his side's naivety after all but gift-wrapping the tie to their opponents.
He said: “It's almost impossible really. It's 3-0 and they are a very good side. 2-0 is a different game and we have been there before with Slovan Bratislava. It would have been a different game and that is why the third goal is so disappointing. You have practically given them the tie which is really frustrating.”
Bradley continued: “The players know that in the first-half we weren’t good enough. Ludogorets were very good but we weren’t good enough. But we knew in the second-half that we performed a lot better. And there were so many positives from the second half to take into next week.
“So when you give away a goal in the last 40 seconds like we did, we play out when we’re not set to play, is really, really naive from a really experienced group of players. And the players know in the dressing room that shouldn’t happen.
“We don’t do that at home to a team in the Leinster Senior Cup, never mind to Ludogorets in the Champions League. It’s really really poor from us.” Cypriot international Pieros Sotiriou scored twice in nine deadly first-half minutes, either side of the half hour mark.
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