Sean Gannon says the Dundalk players haven’t spoken about the Europa League at all, focusing instead on their chance to reach the Champions League group stages.
Dundalk host Legia Warsaw at the Aviva tonight in the first leg of their Champions League playoff.
They are guaranteed a place in the Europa League at a minimum, but Dundalk are not settling, and have their eyes firmly set on the target of reaching Europe’s top-tier competition.
Watch Dundalk v Legia Warsaw live on RTÉ2 from 7.20pm on Wednesday
Sean Gannon tells @Corktod Dundalk haven’t spoken about the Europa League, with the CL group stages the real goal.https://t.co/NRvrdqP7HU
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 17, 2016
Gannon told RTÉ: "The opportunity in front of us is a good one. We’re up against a good side, but we’re at the stage of the competition where no matter who we play they’re going to be a good side and obviously the prize on offer is huge, but we haven’t spoken about the Europa League at all, we’re still in the Champions League and we want to stay in it.
"It’s just up to us to go out and try to do it."
Gannon added: "The only reason we’re here is because of the hard work from last year. Winning the league last year presented us with this opportunity and it is great to be in this competition and to get to the stage where we are took a lot of hard work and a lot of good results and that was just down to us having confidence in ourselves and confidence in our ability.
"Hopefully there’ll be more of the same over the next two legs."
Gannon says Dundalk benefited from having played BATE Borisov last season, with the experience playing a part in their remarkable 3-0 win over BATE in the last round, creating this opportunity to reach the group stages.
He says they’ve done their homework on Legia, with a lot of preparation over the weekend.
"They’re a good side obviously, a very good side, the Polish league is very good and they’re obviously the champions so we know we’re going to be up against a top team."
