Dundalk look to continue their European saga in Iceland

Dundalk FC are in Europe again this Thursday ahead of the first leg of their Europa Conference League second-qualifying-round tie against KA Akureyri (kick-off, 7pm IST).

Fresh from a 3-1 aggregate win over Gibraltarian outfit FCB Magpies in the opening round, The Lilywhites now face KA, who finished third in the Icelandic League last year.

KA are based approximately 400km from Reykjavik, the capital city, but in order to meet UEFA competition requirements, have been playing their home matches at Framvollur, which is home to Fram Reykjavik, who Dundalk beat in the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1981.

Sitting ninth in the Icelandic League table at the time of writing, albeit with two games in hand on their rivals, KA made light work of Connah’s Quay Nomads in the first qualifying round, recording 2-0 wins both at home and away against the Welsh side.

A victory for KA at bottom side Keflavik yesterday would have moved them up several places and into the top half, with head coach Stephen O’Donnell confirming he would be travelling a day earlier than the rest of the Dundalk party in order to take in that fixture.

“I’m going to go out to watch it tomorrow,” he told local media after Dundalk’s 1-0 Sports Direct FAI Cup win over Shamrock Rovers on Sunday. “(The team) are flying out Tuesday. KA might play a different team, might make a lot of changes, I’m not sure.

“As I said last week, it’s good seeing little details live that you mightn’t see on the screen. We’ll see. We mightn’t pick up anything, but you might pick up a couple of things.

“I watched a bit of them, but obviously not really honed in because after Thursday, we were fully focused on this. We’ll get our homework done starting from tomorrow.”

Managed by former Iceland international Hallgrimur Jonasson, who at 37 is the same age as O’Donnell, KA’s biggest threat is arguably midfielder Daniel Hafsteinsson, who scored in both legs versus Connah’s Quay, as well as being recently capped by Iceland.

Paetur Petersen, a striker with three caps for Faroe Islands is their other international.

“I wouldn’t delve into that,” O’Donnell said of KA’s threats.

“To be honest, I don’t know enough about that yet to really give you a definitive answer. That’ll be for the next couple of days, and we’ll formulate our own game plan and how we’re going to go about it.”

As was the case in the previous round, Dundalk play away from home in the first leg, with the return being confirmed for Oriel Park the following Thursday, but O’Donnell doesn’t necessarily see playing the deciding fixture on home turf as a major advantage.

“There’s two ways of looking at it,” he added.

“You can say, really go at them at home, like home crowd, get a good cushion and then go over. But I wouldn’t be too concerned either or.

“They both have pros, they both have cons of the first legs being away or home. So we’ll take it as it is and we’ll try and go at it in a positive manner over both legs.”

With the third qualifying round draw taking place on Monday, Dundalk and KA already know either Club Brugge (BEL) or AGF Aarhus (DEN) are waiting for them ahead of Thursday’s first leg in Reykjavik.

“It’s really exciting I think obviously with the prospective teams, but KA would be the exact same as us in regards looking at that third round as well. So again, we need to be in it and have full focus now over the next sort of 10 days or 12 days on KA over both legs.”

Patrick Hoban and Louie Annesley both sat out that game after picking up knocks against Magpies the previous Thursday, and will be monitored ahead of the KA match.

Meanwhile, a club statement confirming an incident after the Rovers game read:

“Dundalk FC has been made aware of an incident that took place following our Sports Direct FAI Cup match with Shamrock Rovers at Oriel Park on Sunday, when a racist comment was allegedly directed towards an opposition player.

“We have made contact with Shamrock Rovers and are currently investigating the incident. We would like to thank the Dundalk supporters who contacted the club quickly to report it. We have identified the individual involved and would encourage anyone with information to come forward.

“Dundalk FC has a zero-tolerance policy towards racism. Racist or discriminatory behaviour towards any player, official, staff member or supporter is completely unacceptable and has no place in our game or wider society. These people are simply not welcome at Oriel Park.”