Uefa Conference League second qualifying round, second leg: Kalju (Estonia) 2 (Esono 49, Jabi 75) Shelbourne 1 (Kelly 14) (Shelbourne win 6-4 on agg)<\/p>\n
Shelbourne<\/a> will become only the second Irish club to play Ajax in competitive European football, bridging a 39-year gap to when Dundalk welcomed a Johan Cruyff-managed side that included Frank Stapleton<\/a> to Oriel Park in 1987.<\/p>\n The Dutch giants will host the Drumcondra men at the Cruyff Arena in the south-eastern suburbs of Amsterdam next Thursday.<\/p>\n Shelbourne are quietly confident that the Uefa Conference League third round, second-leg on August 13th will be held at Tolka Park.<\/p>\n The blockbuster tie is a timely boost in a season when Shels are barely competing with Dublin rivals Bohemians and St Patrick\u2019s Athletic, never mind troubling Shamrock Rovers for the league title.<\/p>\n The misery has been non-stop. They were bounced out of the FAI Cup by Kerry FC, a week into the John Russell era, having cut ties with Joey O\u2019Brien in June. Next, their best player Harry Wood signed for Stockport County<\/a> in the third tier of English football. All the while, they have struggled to cope with an alarming list of injuries.<\/p>\n The luck of the draw offers Shelbourne a shot at the four-time European Cup winners, albeit a far lesser version of the Ajax that invented Total Football in the 1970s, unleashed Marco van Basten<\/a> in the 1980s and beat a star-studded AC Milan in the 1995 Champions League final with brilliant technical players like Marc Overmars<\/a>, Edgar Davids and Jari Litmanen.<\/p>\n The club has been in a steady decline since Overmars returned as technical director with the former winger forced to resign in 2022 after sending inappropriate messages and photographs to several women employees. Fifa subsequently banned him from any involvement in the game for at least a year.<\/p>\n