When clubs are folding one week followed by a few huge results and a sniff of a moneymaking clash with a football giant the next, it's no wonder people are confused about the domestic game. The argument for and against summer soccer is for another day (though surely last week makes the against argument difficult).

Where it's at right now is that our champions Cork City are a game . . . okay, the game of their lives . . . away from a possible tie with AC Milan . . . again an if here with the whole fact Milan's existence in Europe has yet to be decided. As sweeteners go for grabbing a win, well there's few better.

The potential publicity, revenue and general feel-good factor that the visit of Kaka, Gattuso, Pirlo and the likes coming to play Cork City bring can hardly be overestimated.

Thing is, is it likely?

A few things to note from the first leg with Red Star Belgrade. Cork huffed and puffed without creating much in the way of chances . . . Dan Murray's header off the bar was pretty much it . . . though they did fashion a few situations where a final pass or strike could have opened it up. For much of the game they struggled to get on the ball, as Red Star knocked it around at the back and through midfield without overextending themselves. As a feeling-their-wayinto-it exercise they just about stuck their head out of their shell for a peek. And as much as Cork did well in patches and guys like Dan Murray, Alan Bennett, Neal Horgan, Admir Softic and Cillian Lordan more than held their own against players who were in World Cup squads, the chance of knocking the favourites out of their rhythm may have been passed up. As much due to the absence of arguably their four most influential players in Murphy, Gamble, O'Callaghan and O'Flynn as just an inability to push Red Star back.

And Red Star did have the suspicious look of a team that were playing within themselves. There's a feeling that the tempo of their play and movement might indeed be cranked up a little in Belgrade on Wednesday night, in a ground they won 15 from 15 last season, and that surely Nikola Zigic will show something to suggest he's worth the hype. Whether Cork City can cope with that and then go on to eke out a few chances themselves will go some way to deciding if they can pack their bags for Milan.

Elsewhere there were only bright spots. Derry City and Drogheda United had what you might call nights to remember with two wins over fairly fancied opponents.

Derry deservedly, and that's an important part, overcame IFK Goteburg for two 1-0s over the two legs and were rewarded by a game with Gretna, the Scottish minnows who marched to last year's Scottish Cup final. Drogheda dispatched HJK Helsinki with two extra-time penalties by Damien Lynch to set up a tie with Norwegians IK Start, a team currently near the bottom of an admittedly tight domestic league. Both were the sort of wins that might put the league itself in the spotlight for some of the right reasons and now both have eminently winnable games, if not ties, in front of them and a place in the UEFA Cup proper as a live possibility.

There are other implications from results during the week. Points. Let's not bang on about the importance of coefficients for too long but two wins from Derry and Drogheda on Thursday night added another mark to the Irish tally and brought the overall ranking up to 37th . . . we had been lingering behind the likes of Liechenstein and Iceland until recently. Another couple of wins, which is more than possible, and we can start thinking of overhauling another few countries. Baby steps for sure, but after getting seeding for the first qualifying round, the next goal would be automatic entry to the second qualifying round and so on, all building more wins, more points and hopefully making it easier to reach the third qualifying round of the Champions League and the main stages of the Uefa Cup every year.

Given some of the performances recently, there isn't any reason why Ireland should be behind the Georgias, Lithuanias and Latvias of European football. Top 30 should be a realistic aim . . . in fact the results against Swedish opposition (ranked 26th right now) over the last few years suggest that at least.