Linfield and Shelbourne will renew acquaintances in their all-Irish Champions League first round qualifier, when the two go head-to-head in the second leg at Windsor Park on Wednesday.

It is the team from south of the border who lead after the first leg, as League of Ireland champions Shelbourne have a 1-0 advantage from last week’s encounter at Tolka Park.

Match preview

While the League of Ireland play through the summer, in Northern Ireland, they follow the more familiar winter schedule, so Linfield enter this clash from the cold, having finished their previous league season back in April.

The hosts also struggled at the end of the campaign, despite still winning the title by a whopping 22 points, as they have now lost four competitive matches in succession, including the Charity Shield against Dungannon last month.

Linfield are no strangers to European football, so often being dominant domestically, but they have still never qualified for a group stage/league phase, but starting off in the Champions League gives them the best chance of ending that barren run.

This is their first Champions League campaign since 2022, when Bodo/Glimt beat them 8-0 in the second leg of their second round qualifier to eliminate them, but they eventually dropped down to the playoff of the Conference League, where they lost in heartbreaking circumstances to RFS, and missed out on the group stage.

It looks more difficult this time around, as David Healy’s men are not fancied to progress here, so that would mean they will need to win three straight Conference League ties if they want to reach the league phase.

A repeat scoreline from the Setanta Sports Cup final in 2005 would do the trick for the hosts though, when Linfield won 2-0 in the briefly contested all-Irish competition, and they will hope that Shelbourne’s struggles this season could give them a chance.

The League of Ireland allows their clubs competing in UEFA qualifiers to have a lighter schedule during the summer months, and that could benefit the visitors, who have endured a turbulent few weeks following the resignation of manager Damien Duff.

Shelbourne beat Cork on July 4, but will not play another league game until August 2, by which point they will already have played another round of qualifiers, it is just not yet clear which competition that will be in.

Joey O’Brien has come in to replace Duff, and he guided the Irish champions to a 1-0 win in the first leg last week, with Ademipo Odubeko scoring the winner just before the hour mark.

They will be slightly disappointed at not bringing a bigger margin of victory into this second leg though, as Shelbourne were dominant for large periods of the first leg.

Europe looks unlikely next season given their current league position in Ireland, so Shelbourne will be keen to take this chance, and potentially reach a European competition proper for the first time.

Last season saw Shelbourne compete in Europe for the first time in almost two decades, and they were beaten by Zurich in the second round of Conference League qualifying, but a win in this tie will give them a huge chance of making it to a league phase, because they will then only need to win one more tie to be assured of a spot in one of them.

Linfield Champions League form:

L

Shelbourne Champions League form:

W

Shelbourne form (all competitions):

W L D D W W

Team News

Linfield will be without Spanish midfielder Alex Rodriguez due to injury here, while there was also no debut for new signing Sean Brown in the first leg, following his summer move from Larne.

There has not been much movement on the transfer front during the off-season for the Northern Irish champions though, so they are set to name a similar XI to last week.

The same can be said for Shelbourne, who named an unchanged side in the first leg from the one that beat Cork in the league a few days earlier.

Top scorer Odubeko is the man in form for the visitors, because last week’s match-winner has now scored in each of his last three appearances.

Linfield possible starting lineup:

Johns; Orr, East, Hall, McCullough; Archer, Mulgrew, McGee; Millar, Fitzpatrick, Morrison

Shelbourne possible starting lineup:

Kearns; Caffrey, Barrett, Ledwidge, Wilson; Wood, Coyle, Lunney, McInroy; Odubeko, Boyd

We say: Linfield 1-1 Shelbourne

It is a fascinating tie between two sides on the island of Ireland, and it could well go down to the wire, and potentially go the distance, but Shelbourne will be the slight favourites, despite their recent off-field concerns.

Linfield will hope that Shelbourne’s dip in form this year will give them an excellent chance, but they have suffered heartache in recent qualifying campaigns, and this week could see another, especially with their lack of match practice compared to their opponents.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.

Written by
Andrew Delaney

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