Despite acknowledging the quality of tonight’s opponents AZ Alkmaar, Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny believes the experience of his players means they won’t go into tonight’s match with an inferiority complex.
The League of Ireland champions begin their Europa League campaign in Holland after being eliminated from the Champions League in a play-off defeat by Legia Warsaw.
And Kenny is quietly confident his side can make an impression in the group stages despite being outsiders to progress to the knock-out stages.
"They just sold Vincent Janssen to Spurs for €20 million! So that’s the level they’re at"
Kenny told RTÉ Sport: “We want to get a good start in the group. We’ve shown a capacity in the last couple of seasons to get good away results.
“We beat Hajduk Split a couple of years ago in Croatia, we went and got a result in Iceland (against FH Hafnarfjordur) that got us through this year and we played quite well in Warsaw recently.
“So we can take those experiences and bring them into tonight’s game.”
AZ will provide a stern challenge though, having twice reaching the quarter-finals of the competition while former Europa League winners Zenit St Pettersburg and Macabi Tel Aviv are also in Dundalk’s group.
Kenny continued: “I think since Louis van Gaal went in there and obviously Steve McLaren after that, they won the Eredivisie and they’ve been in the top four.
“I mean Ajax, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord are the traditional three big Dutch teams, but I think AZ have been up there with them over the last few seasons consistently.
“They just sold Vincent Janssen to Spurs for €20 million! So that’s the level they’re at. And Ron Vlaar their cantre half just played for Holland in the semi-final of the World Cup three years ago...
“So certainly they have pedigree and they’ll be expecting to win tonight, but we believe in ourselves, we believe in what we’re doing and we’ve shown against other teams of similar standard that we’re able to go toe-to-toe and match teams and we certainly won’t have an inferiority complex going in tonight.”
Darren Meenan is a serious doubt with a groin injury and Ciaran O’Connor is out with a rib injury for tonight’s 6pm kick-off.
Ciaran Kilduff is back in the squad following a knee injury as is captain Stephen O’Donnell, who returns after serving his suspension.
