St Patrick's Athletic hero issues Euro warning ahead of third round clash
The Europa Conference League group stages are just two rounds away, but Brandon Kavanagh isn't looking too far ahead.
Super sub Brandon Kavanagh has warned that St Patrick’s Athletic cannot afford to look beyond their Azerbaijani opponents Sabah FK.
Their pathway to Europa Conference League group stage football has been laid out in front of them this week.
The winners of their third round tie will face either FC Iberia 1999 Tbilisi of Georgia or Turkish side İstanbul Başakşehir in the play-offs.
İstanbul Başakşehir have made it to the group stages of all three major competitions in the last seven seasons, including a Champions League appearance in 2020.
They defeated Manchester United 2-1 in that campaign, but lost their other five games in a group that also included Paris St Germain and RB Leipzig.
And they beat Hearts 3-1 and 4-0 on their way to the last-16 of the Conference League two seasons ago.
But Kavanagh isn’t getting caught up with thoughts of play-off opponents just yet.
The hero of St Pat’s 3-2 win over Sligo Rovers on Sunday, when he came off the bench to score a brace, warned: “That’s miles away, we have two huge games to play.
“Then we are back in the league on Sunday (away to Galway United).
“So we can’t look any further than Thursday, because you know what happens if you look too far. For us, we just need to put all our focus into Thursday.”
The work on Sabah began straight after Sunday’s last-gasp win over Sligo Rovers, with the Pat’s coaching staff getting their hands on as much video footage of their opponents as possible.
“I know they played Maccabi and there were a lot of goals in the game,” said Kavanagh of the 6-6 aggregate thriller, which saw Sabah edge their way through on penalties.
“We had to put all our focus on Sligo Rovers and we did. Now we will go through everything. I’m sure we’ll cover every bit of it.”
According to Kavanagh, there are no tired legs within the Richmond Park squad as they prepare for a hectic period of games at home and abroad.
“That’s what you want. You want Europe. You can’t be giving out about playing two or three games a week, because that’s what you want in football, they are the best times,” he said.
As for having to play the game in Tallaght, he added: “Listen, we’ll have huge numbers up there.
“The fans have been brilliant since the start of the season and through the rough times and all that, so we are looking to turn it around now.”
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