Dundalk’s Stephen Kenny to start study of Legia Warsaw

PAUL BUTTNER Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny will travel to watch Legia Warsaw tomorrow as preparations begin in earnest for his side's meeting with the Polish champions in the playoff round of the Champions League, following the draw at Uefa headquarters in Nyon yesterday.

Dundalk will be at home in the first leg at the Aviva Stadium on Wednesday week, with the return at Legia’s Army Stadium in Warsaw the following Tuesday, August 23rd.

Dundalk are thus 180 minutes away from making history for a League of Ireland side as the winners enter the Champions League group stages with a minimum prize of €12 million. Defeat would see Dundalk parachuted into the group stages of the Europa League where they would be guaranteed at least €5.6 million in prize money.

Ranked lower than Dundalk’s vanquished third-round opponents BATE Borisov, Legia played St Patrick’s Athletic in the second qualifying round of the Champions League two years ago.

Christy Fagan put the Dubliners ahead in Warsaw before Legia snatched a late equaliser on the night. They then beat St Patrick's 5-0 in the return leg at Tallaght Stadium.

Celtic were then convincingly beaten by the same 6-1 aggregate scoreline in the next round, but Legia were eliminated for fielding an ineligible player and dropped into the Europa League.

Regulars in the group stages of the Europa League in recent years, the 11-time Polish champions have only once qualified for the group stages of the Champions League and that was over 20 years ago.

While Legia, in seventh place in their league after three games, have the considered advantage of being at home in the second leg, it’s not something Kenny is unduly concerned about.

“We’re at home first, so logistically we can focus on that, there is no mad panic to organise everything for next week. I don’t mind being at home first,” said Kenny, who will watch Legia’s home league game with GKS Piast Gliwice tomorrow evening.

“We’re already working on gathering information and trying to build a profile of their team. I want to have a fair degree of knowledge before I travel on Sunday, then watch them live and have a greater idea of how they set up technically and their strengths and weaknesses. I’ll be a lot wiser when I come back from that.”

Given the high level of interest shown since Tuesday’s win over BATE, and the sizeable Polish community in the the country, Dundalk can be confident of attracting a large crowd for the home leg.

“It would have been our choice to play in the Aviva,” said Kenny of the venue. “We’ve the experience of the FAI Cup final [there] and we’ve good memories and the players want to play in the biggest stadium.

“They work hard and they’re inspired by the idea of playing in the national stadium. We have no problem going back there and the players want that.

“It’s impossible to predict what sort of crowd we’ll get, but I know the manner of our victory over BATE Borisov captured the imagination of everyone who loves football in Ireland. The messages we’ve had from all over Ireland, I’m very touched by them all.”

Manchester City were drawn to face Steaua Bucharest of Romania while Celtic were handed a tie against Israeli side Hapoel Beer-Sheva.

West Ham were drawn against Astra Giurgiu of Romania in the Europa League play-off round. Slaven Bilic’s men will be aiming to join Manchester United and Southampton in the group phase of Europe’s second-tier competition.