Captain O’Donnell hoping for another fantastic night at the ‘home of football’

STEPHEN O’Donnell recently took part in a Dundalk FC promotional video which underlined the importance of the captain’s role.

Put together by club sponsors Fyffes and also featuring captains from the past, John Murphy and Dermot Keely, it gave an insight into what exactly the armband means to the 29-year-old.

However, as O’Donnell prepares to lead Dundalk into Champions League combat with Iceland’s FH Hafnarfjardur this week, he insists that there are an abundance of leaders in Stephen Kenny’s side and he is hopeful that fact will help them progress in Europe.

‘I never take it for granted and I always take great pride in leading the team out, especially such a successful team with such good players,’ he said.

‘I think a lot is made of the captain though. I’m just another one of the players. We have a lot of leaders on the pitch and when I’m not playing the players always grind out the wins. I suppose the video highlighted the role a bit but I’m just one of the many leaders. It’s a great honour for me, especially in such a successful period for Dundalk.’

The Galway native was part of the Shamrock Rovers team that made the Europa League group stages five years ago and he didn’t hide the fact that it is this Dundalk side’s ambition to make a similar impact.

‘You want as many teams going through from the League of Ireland as possible,’ he said.

‘It is a big aim, there’s no denying it. We spoke about it in pre-season but first and foremost the league was the huge thing. Now though we’re onto Europe and we said we need to be in a good position when it came to Europe so the confidence was high and we’re in that good position.

‘We’re top of the league but there’s no point denying it that it is a big ambition for the players and the manager to do well in Europe. Next week we’ll be totally geared for it and raring to go.

‘We’ve a full week to prepare so we’ll get the low down on them. Gerry Spain was over watching them last week so we’ll have our homework done and by Wednesday we’ll be well prepared.’

While not conceding an away goal will be one of Dundalk’s main priorities on Wednesday, O’Donnell insists it will be the club’s aim to win the match at Oriel Park if at all possible.

‘You take every game on merits.’ he said.

‘If the game is there to be won next week then you’ll try and win it. Obviously we’re going to try and win it but you don’t know how a game is going to play out or what incidents are going to happen. You can never foresee different things but we’ll do our homework on them and have a game plan and after that it’s up to us as players to execute the game plan. If we do that then I think we have a good chance. its

‘We’ve scored 11 goals in three games since we’ve come back so that’s not a bad return. Hopefully we can keep that going.’

Indeed the form of strikers David McMillan and Ciaran Kilduff has given O’Donnell and co reason to be hopeful of achieving what would be one of the most famous victories in the club’s history.

‘The two of them are good buddies and there is good, honest competition there. It’s great for us because if you have two strikers scoring goals it’s phenomenal.

‘That’s what we have at the minute. They’re brimming with confidence and if either of them takes the pitch they look like and are confident that they’re going to score so it’s brilliant.’

O’Donnell certainly inspired supporters with his role in the recent promotional video but he insist fans can have a similar effect on the team by getting behind the side in their numbers on Wednesday night.

‘Any time we go away from home and the home support is quite vocal and it does get the home team’s tails up so we need the place bouncing here. Irish teams aren’t used to winning in Europe so it’s up to us to get the supporters behind us but if the supporters can be as intimidating as possible and get behind the team it definitely gives you an extra 5 or 10%,’ he said.