{"id":141693,"date":"2026-08-06T22:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/141693\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T22:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:32:12","slug":"john-russell-hails-goalkeeper-eddie-beach-as-shelbourne-leave-amsterdam-with-heads-held-high-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/141693\/","title":{"rendered":"John Russell hails goalkeeper Eddie Beach as Shelbourne leave Amsterdam with heads held high \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overall, Shelbourne<\/a> manager John Russell and his players leave the Johan Cruyff Arena with heads held high and reputations enhanced. <\/p>\n

A 3-1 loss to a rampant Ajax<\/a> side in their Amsterdam cauldron keeps this Uefa Conference League qualifier alive for the return to Tolka Park next Thursday.<\/p>\n

The two venues are worlds apart, from two different centuries. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to defend for our lives tonight with bodies on the line,\u201d said Russell, who struck a composed tone in the immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed to hurt, and we did. It could have got away from us but Eddie Beach was world-class tonight. Absolutely world-class. I wanted him at the club, having seen him at Derry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Welsh man made seven sensational saves. Two of them drew ripples of applause around an amphitheatre of 50,000-plus football fanatics but to deny Mika Godts a second goal from the penalty spot blocked out fears of an embarrassing rout.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe penalty save gave us energy, it gave us life,\u201d said Russell. \u201cThe players grew in confidence, the subs made a good impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always felt Dan Kelly was a threat. Felt like he would get a goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell made a difficult decision to bench his Scottish winger Ali Coote, arguably Shels most creative player, as an ultra-defensive shape was prioritised to avoid humiliation. It was Coote\u2019s late arrival that encouraged Shelbourne to attack. And it was Coote\u2019s shot that Maarten Paes saved to invite Kelly to score from the rebound.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to Ali about selection a couple of days ago. We knew it was going to have to be a defensive performance. He came in and made an impact. He is just so comfortable on the ball. Technical player, he caused real problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 3-0, and with PSG-bound Godts about to strike his second penalty, it looked like Shels worst nightmare was about to unfold. <\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d Russell agreed. \u201cThe quality of player, the speed of play and combinations around the box but Eddie kept us in the tie. Really proud of the performance. It lets us go back to Tolka, a full house. It is going to be a different game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result forces Ajax\u2019s new Spanish manager M\u00edchel to take the second leg seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur play wasn\u2019t good enough,\u201d he said in broken English. \u201cWe are building the team. We need to keep improving our philosophy. For the first 15 minutes we were very good. But overall I am not happy with the performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more chemistry between the players, they need to understand what we want as quick as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Godts potential move to Paris, he added: \u201cMika is our best player on the pitch. It is very important for Ajax that he plays with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overall, Shelbourne manager John Russell and his players leave the Johan Cruyff Arena with heads held high and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[101],"tags":[1148,199,67612,200,67604],"class_list":["post-141693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-ajax-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam","tag-europa-conference-league","tag-netherlands","tag-shelbourne-fc"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117050942900187725","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}