TWO goals by Gabriel Ramos either side of the interval ended Derry City’s hopes of staying in the European Conference League.
Losing 2-0 from the first leg at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium, manager Ruaidhri Higgins had told his players to dare to dream of a possible win over Riga.
But in the end Ramos made it a nightmare for The Candystripes on their away trip to Latvia.
James Akintunde should have opened the scoring for Derry before Ramos put the home side in front on 33 minutes
The Brazilian added a sublime second on 76 minutes as Ruaidhri Higgins’ side exited losing 4-0 on aggregate.
Derry City’s wait for a win over two legs in Europe goes on but things may have been different had they made the most of their fast start in Riga.
Thirteen years on from a 1-1 draw in the same city, Akintunde spurned a gilt-edged chance to halve the deficit when eyeball-to-eyeball with Nils Purins in the Riga goal.
Danny Lafferty crashed an effort into the side netting but Derry found themselves behind when in a carbon copy of last week’s opener Douglas Aurelio pulled a cross back into the area and Ramos latched onto the ball to fire past Brian Maher.
Purins gifted Brandon Kavanagh an opportunity to equalise but his attempt just sailed over as the Foylesiders went in 1-0 behind.
Not since a 9-0 aggregate win over Aberystwyth Town back in 2014 have Derry advanced through a European tie and they were on course for a fifth consecutive exit.
Will Patching rattled the crossbar from inside the area as they continued to battle in the second period.
However, with less than quarter of an hour remaining the peerless Ramos scurried down the left, shifted inside and curled in a beauty from the corner of the box to make it 2-0 on the night and 4-0 on aggregate.
Amid the defeat there was a welcome return to action for Michael Duffy who will be in line to feature when City return to League of Ireland action in the north west derby with Finn Harps this Sunday at Finn Park in Ballybofey (kick off 6 pm).
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