Uefa Europa Conference League second qualifying round, second leg
KuPS (1) v Derry City (2) (Thursday, 5pm)
DERRY City boss Ruaidhrí Higgins admits their first leg Europa Conference League win over KuPS Kuopio has given his squad great belief going into Thursday night’s second leg in Finland (KO 5pm).
Higgins also conceded that his players know they’ll have to put in another fantastic performance if they harbour hopes to create history and become only the second ever Derry side to progress to the third qualifying round in a European competition.
“We’re delighted to be going there in front and that was the objective from the first leg,” he insisted.
“I think the win at the Brandywell was great for our belief, our confidence and knowing that we’re capable of beating them whether that’s home or away. Our mentality will be to go there and try to win the game.
“I think they were excellent in the first 15 minutes of last week’s game, but I feel we can cause them major issues as well and if they come to be really, really aggressive in their approach against us, then we can hurt them the other way.
“I definitely feel we’ve got the capabilities and the profile of our players can really do damage over there as well.
“It would be absolutely amazing if we did manage to reach the third round. KuPS are a proper team, who are really good and are ranked 222 places above us. They’ve got real experience in Europe, but we know if we replicate our performance from the Brandywell, then we can go over there and get a special result.”
Taking a 2-1 lead into Thursday evening’s encounter the Limavady man admits his side may have to score in the Väre Areena.
“We’ll possibly need to score out there, but we’ve obviously a good defensive record,” he added.
“We know that we’ve got players who can win matches in an instant, but look if we don’t have to score, great, but if we do have to score we’ve got the talent from within our group to do that.
“Our defensive record has been really good this season and we take pride in that, players take pride in that. The structure of the team has been good, we defend from the front and everyone knows what’s expected of them, so it has been a real team effort this season.
“If we’re going to go there and get a result, then we know that we’re going to have to be really good defensively as well.”
