O'Donnell believes tie is still alive ahead of big European night

Stephen O’Donnell was pleased with his Dundalk FC side’s performance, in spite of their 3-1 Europa Conference League loss at the hands of KA Akureyri in Iceland last Thursday.

The Lilywhites fell behind through Bjarni Adalsteinsson’s opener for the hosts after 28 minutes of play, but hit back just four minutes later when Daniel Kelly levelled matters.

However, a brace from Sveinn Margeir Hauksson before half-time leaves Dundalk with a mountain to climb ahead of this Thursday’s return leg at Oriel Park (kick-off, 7.45pm).

“Performance wise, I’m very happy,” O’Donnell told local media afterwards. “I thought we were totally dominant for the whole game pretty much.

“Obviously very frustrated with the goals we gave up. I think anyone watching the game, the 3-1 scoreline is the worst possible scoreline from how the game went. We were totally the dominant team for 85% of the game, so we’re looking forward now to the second leg.”

The most frustrating element of the first-leg defeat at Framvöllur was the nature of Dundalk’s concessions, with all three of KA’s goals resulting from defensive lapses.

“We let them out too easy and they were all sort of similar trend,” the Dundalk head coach reflected. “But from their point of view, it’s good quality. They were very efficient with it, but they were their only chances really. So as I said, we dominated the game, and the tie’s not over.

“We have a disadvantage, we have a bit of a deficit, but as I said, we’ll have a good week to prepare and we’re looking forward to next Thursday.”

O’Donnell had travelled to Iceland a day in advance of the remaining Dundalk party, in order to take in KA’s 4-3 win over Keflavik, and although impressed with their attacking prowess, was disappointed his side couldn’t bring more goals back to Oriel this week.

“They had good quality in the offensive areas, but the game hinges on moments. We had a lot of moments. We probably didn’t score as many as we should have from our dominance, and they countered on us. So we have to obviously look out for that in the second leg, the transitions and the counters. But on the whole, I think, anyone at the game would say Dundalk were the dominant team.

“I thought John Martin had a big chance, then another chance cleared off the line. When a team sits in their own half, you’re not going to create 10, 15 chances with everyone behind the ball. We got in a lot of dangerous areas and we will again next week.

“I was happy with the first half too. I thought we were dominating the first half. They were a threat on a couple of transitions, and as the game went on, obviously they went into the mode, maybe, of being in the lead.

“I knew we were going to go out and dominate the second half and it was just a case of whether we could, obviously, be structured in that defensively, and see could we capitalise on our dominance from an attacking point of view.”

A cause for optimism coming into Thursday’s second leg at home will be Dundalk’s impressive unbeaten record in European competitions at Oriel, which was stretched to nine matches following the 3-1 win over FCB Magpies of Gibraltar in the previous round.

BATE Borisov, FH Hafnarfjordur, Rosenborg, Levadia Tallinn, AEK Larnaca, Riga, Qarabag, Newtown and Magpies have all come to the Carrick Road venue and failed to win since Hajduk Split became the last European side to do so at Oriel back in 2014.

O’Donnell knows a sell-out crowd this week could well be the difference in them getting over the line and into the third qualifying round, where they would likely face Belgian giants Club Brugge, who are 3-0 up ahead of their trip to Denmark to face AGF Aarhus.

“I suppose a lot of the crowd would have watched the game this evening, so they’ll know the tie is still alive and looking forward to Oriel being bouncing next Thursday. KA are the favourites as it stands; but again, we’ve seen enough in the game to know that the tie is still alive also.”

In the event of Dundalk’s progression, they would travel to Belgium or Denmark on Thursday week, August 10th, with the return likely at Tallaght Stadium a week later.

Before that, The Lilywhites, who have no fresh injury concerns, will host Shelbourne in the SSE Airtricity League this Sunday (kick-off, 5pm), while the Sports Direct FAI Cup second-round draw sees Dundalk travel to Bray Wanderers for the first time since 2018.