Roberto Lopes knows a Shamrock Rovers-Bohemians derby is unlikely to win any beauty contests.
But he doesn’t care if the Hoops win ugly tonight, just as long as they go home with the bragging rights.
All 7,500 tickets were snapped up at the start of the week and Tallaght Stadium is officially a sell-out.
READ MORE: SPL and Championship clubs chasing Sligo Rovers ace
Dublin’s arch rivals will collide and Rovers ace Lopes said: “Down the years, I don’t think I’ve played in any that were great quality.
“But you can still enjoy them. You just feel it. It doesn’t matter about performance, it’s about three points.
“You want to go out there and put on a show and play really well and get a couple of goals and walk away happy as larry.
“But it doesn’t matter if you win a scrappy 1-0. If you get battered for 90 minutes and nick a goal, the fans will love you because you beat the biggest rivals.
“And that’s what it is about, it’s about getting the three points no matter how and moving on to the next one.”
Cape Verde star Lopes was a Bohs player between 2010 and 2016, before his switch in 2017 to Shamrock Rovers.
But he loves the clashes with his old club, with Rovers winning both meetings to date this season.
“It’s just that intimidating atmosphere, a hostile atmosphere,” he continued.
“You know that every throw in against you, every free kick against you every bad pass, every good pass is momentum.
“The fans are getting on any sort of bad touch, any sort of borderline foul throw-in, you’ll know about it and you’re under pressure straight away.
“It’s about managing those emotions and controlling that pressure and being up for the battle because it’s helter skelter from start to finish.
“It’s about knowing your moments when you can put your foot on the ball and showing your quality when you can - there is no quarter given and no quarter asked.”
Meanwhile, Lopes has revealed how the treatment of Liverpool fans at the Champions League final left a ‘bad taste’ in his mouth.
The Hoops star travelled to Paris with his Reds-supporting mate on the morning of the May 28 final against Real Madrid.
It was the start of the League of Ireland mid-season break, although Lopes was then flying to Morocco after his Parisian jaunt for international duty with Cape Verde.
But yesterday he opened up on the uncomfortable scenes that were brewing at the Stade de France in the hours before kick-off.
This week, a French Senate hearing was told of heavy-handed policing, organisational chaos and overcrowding at the game.
French cops had used tear gas and pepper spray on some supporters before kick-off in European football’s biggest club game.
Hoops ace Lopes said: “The game itself was absolutely fantastic. The lead up to it and after left a bit of a bad taste.
“As I was walking in, it was starting to get a bit tetchy but we were a couple of gates up from where the real drama happened.
“It wasn’t really well organised at all, trying to get fans into the stadium. Scanning tickets was a nightmare.
“They were bottlenecking people and if you had a fake ticket you were just pushed back into the crowd. It was wedging people.
“After the game, it was similar. There were loads of exits but they were all closed and they were shooing people in one-way.
“We were lucky we were in a group of six people who could stick together.
“But you could see people walking out with their kids, and it was ‘Jesus that would put you off bringing kids.’
“I felt that it could go wrong at any time. If I had a young kid, the last thing I would want to do was bring them into that environment.”
And leaving the Stade de France, Lopes said fans were still on edge as they made their way to the metro station.
“You had to go under an underpass and it was dark. You didn’t know who you were walking past or walking into, you were constantly on guard.”
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