Hops and dreams - the former pub team aiming to shock Europe
Nathan Rooney will take FCB Magpies into the biggest game in their history on Thursday
- Published
If Nathan Rooney's FCB Magpies pull off one of the biggest-ever European shocks, they know where the party will be.
The 'pub team' formed at Bruno's bar in Gibraltar for just £500 in 2013 now find themselves mixing with Europe's best.
On Thursday they face 15-time Danish champions FC Copenhagen in the first leg of their Europa Conference League second-round qualifying tie.
Last season FC Copenhagen beat Manchester United at home in the group stage of the Champions League on their way to the last 16 of Europe's premier club competition.
Now they are facing a side from a footballing nation with a population of just under 33,000 - less than the Faroe Islands - which means everyone in Gibraltar could fit in Copenhagen's 38,000-capacity Parken Stadium.
Despite the odds against his side, Magpies boss Rooney wants to keep raising the bar.
"The 'pub team', we should keep that tag all the time as it's attractive to the outside world and people who are hooked on the stories," he said, before the game at Europa Point Stadium - in a sports complex on the Rock of Gibraltar - which has a capacity of 875.
"The selling point is how things grow and how they evolve.
"Even for us to be competing against these teams means the pub tag has to stay with us - but also be separated - because we are trying to get this club from a part-time hybrid model, where we are currently, to a full-time sustainable model.
"Then we can utilise the youth teams and start selling players, which doesn't happen here."
That progression under Rooney - who initially joined in 2022 - has seen the Magpies win the Rock Cup and Super Cup last year and qualify for Europe three times.
It has allowed them to sign former Aberdeen defender Ashton Taylor after he left Bradford in May, while Rooney believes the league could become full-time in the next 18 months.
He says: "We've had three cup finals, three consecutive European qualifications and then your eyes open and you realise you're becoming sustainable.
"The underdog mentality has now levelled off, we are only the underdog in Europe.
"Now in the league, if we want to back up what we are doing in Europe, we have got to have a little bit more investment in terms of getting the better players but also not just one-year contracts.
"Then you are going to start putting money into facilities because you know you are going to have a group to come with you on the next journey."
Career coach Rooney's drive to succeed
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Rooney has not landed in Gibraltar by chance, having started his coaching career in his late teens in the youth setup at hometown club Blackburn - working with a young David Raya - and gaining his Uefa A licence by 22.
At 24 he moved to Fleetwood as head of youth - working with Steven Pressley, Graham Alexander and Uwe Rosler - before moving to Crawley as number two to Italian Cabriele Cioffi, who went on to manage in Serie A with Udinese and Hellas Verona.
He was reunited with Pressley at Carlisle briefly in 2019 but it was leaving the familiar surroundings of Ewood Park for Fleetwood which Rooney feels made him.
"I was pushed into the deep end, you either stand up to it or say 'it isn’t for me'," says the 34-year-old, who has the League Managers Diploma and is studying for the Uefa Pro Licence.
"I embraced it, I embraced being told off, to wake up, to do this better and the early hours wanting to be first in with the managers and trying to be the last out. The more you put into anything the more you get out of it.
"These are the games you put all the years in to get to this stage. I worked with Uwe - who is Aarhus boss now - and they play Copenhagen next weekend, I’ve tried to touch base and we have a couple of little bits.
"I've worked with some top managers. I'm still a young person on paper but I’m definitely not young in terms of the coaching world with 16-17 years' experience.
"I didn't expect to be abroad, especially for three years, but my wife [Wales defender Rhiannon Roberts] is here now. She plays for Real Betis women [based in Seville in southern Spain, 100 miles north of Gibraltar] so we're settled and loving it."
Magpies aim for more history in Gibraltar
The Red Imps were eventually beaten 3-1 on aggregate after stunning Celtic in Gibraltar
In Rooney's first spell he took Magpies to the Conference League qualifiers, only to lose to Belfast-based Crusaders and miss out on a meeting with FC Basel.
He stepped down in May 2023 after winning the Rock Cup, the club's first silverware, and finishing third in the Gibraltar Football League to secure European football again, but returned last September.
Rooney and his squad are now looking to emulate the biggest result in Gibraltar club history, the Red Imps' 1-0 win over Celtic in 2016.
It will also not be Copenhagen's first trip to the British Overseas Territory having beaten the Red Imps 4-0 in the Champions League group stage in 2021-22.
A 3-2 aggregate win over Derry City in the first qualifying round this month secured Magpies their glamour tie, with Rooney happy to call it what it is.
"It's the biggest game in the club's history. Will there be a bigger game for Bruno's Magpies against Copenhagen in the future? Will it be in my time, someone else's?" he says.
"We won't realise it until we finish the away leg , come away from the arena with our families and we are hopefully in a respectable position in terms of the result.
"When we shake hands with the opponents and both badges are there on the programme it's massive history. We can't stop, we have to embrace the next one, keep pushing and hope to have this feeling again."
Copenhagen, under Jacob Neestrup, reached the last 16 of the Champions League last season, for the first time since 2010-11.
They finished second in Group A, beating Galatasaray and drawing at Bayern Munich, while also coming from 2-0 down to topple Manchester United 4-3.
It leaves Rooney in no doubt about the challenge but it is one they will raise a glass to, whatever the outcome.
He adds: "Will they relax or come here and want to get the job done, will they have one eye on the league? It's the question we've asked ourselves. They have every resource going and we don't.
"It's a test of mentality. Hopefully we find ourselves in a good moment and stand up to the challenge.
"We seem to be a team who like the big games. It's another opportunity. We'd like to write more history. If it's from the performance, brilliant, or from result, even better, but we're going to do it together."