‘Nothing compares to this’
STEPHEN O’Donnell has had a few big nights in his career but he insists nothing compares to the joy of beating BATE Borisov at Tallaght Stadium last Tuesday.
The Dundalk skipper might have scored the crucial penalty which booked Sham-Shamrock Rovers’ place in the Europa League group stages five years ago at the expense of Partizan Belgrade and returned from a potentially career threatening injury to hit the opener against Cork City in the memorable 2014 title-decider at Oriel Park but Tuesday topped it all for him.
‘It’s definitely the best night of my career, the best night of everyone’s career,’ he told The Argus afterwards.
‘To beat an established team like that 3-0 is amazing stuff. There was no fluke about it. It was just brilliant.
‘We knew we couldn’t have played any worse than we did last week. We came away with a 1-0 defeat and that was crucial because the tie was still alive and we knew we had so much more in our locker. We’re just delighted we showed it and I think we were deserving winners,’ he said.
O’Donnell said he had every confidence his side could win the game if they got their creative players into the game, which they did, and now sees no reason as to why Dundalk cannot push on to the Cham- pions League group stages.
‘Definitely we want to test ourselves at the highest level,’ he said when asked could they do it.
‘No one gave us a chance tonight but we believed in ourselves and we’ll believe in ourselves again no matter who we get and we’ll just go and play.’
The 30-year-old’s display was all the more impressive given the fact he played more than half the game with a patched up arm but he insisted that not even a herd of wild elephants could have dragged him off on the night.
‘I just landed awkward and sort of straightened my elbow and it kind of popped.
‘I probably have just strained ligaments or whatever but I’ll survive. It would have taken a lot to drag me off the field anyway because these are the games you want to play in.
‘It’s fairytale stuff,’ he said.