Wednesday 14 September 2016 18:54, UK
Interview with Alan Keane, the man who has come out of retirement to play European football for Dundalk.
Dundalk's European adventure continues on Thursday as the Irish champions play their first Europa League group game away to AZ in Alkmaar. It's the next step on an amazing journey for the part-timers. A club whose very existence was threatened only four years ago.
Much has changed since Monaghan United withdrew from competition, thus allowing Dundalk to contest and win a play-off against Waterford to stay in the top flight. With new owners and the debts paid off, the turnaround has been as emphatic as it's been swift.
Manager Stephen Kenny, who got the job in 2013 a year after being axed by Shamrock Rovers, has masterminded much of it. A come-from-behind win over Champions League regulars BATE Borisov even took Dundalk to the brink of Europe's biggest tournament.
Legia Warsaw proved too tricky to overcome but the Europa League is some second prize. They are only the second Irish side to get this far and as well as the opener at AZ, they're rewarded with ties against Zenit St Petersburg and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Kenny has achieved it all with a team made up of architects and electricians. A team that has to train during the evenings in order to accommodate those players who have day jobs. Not that they've been training too much lately.
Aiming to win the double for a second successive season, Dundalk won an FAI Cup quarter-final against University College Dublin in front of 506 people on Friday and squeezed in another league game against Finn Harps on Monday, winning 2-0, before heading out to Holland.
Should Dundalk reach the FAI Cup final, they'll be playing less than 72 hours before the trip to St Petersburg. It's a fixture list that has necessitated more numbers. A fixture list that's caused Alan Keane to put an end to playing Gaelic football and come out of retirement.
A versatile player capable of filling in anywhere across the back line, Keane had been a mainstay of the Sligo Rovers side for over six years, winning the title in 2012. But at the age of 31, he'd been retired for six months and even switched sports when Kenny came calling.
"I was back in Sligo with my partner and my son," Keane tells Sky Sports. "Once I finished, I just wanted to stay part of a team sport so I started playing for a local team called St John's. I thought that was me for the year, you know. Playing sport but nothing too serious.
"I'd made my decision and I was happy. But then I got the call from Stephen Kenny. Working with the best team and the best manager in the league was too good to turn down. With the chance of Europa League football, it was an easy decision to come out of retirement."
So why the decision to walk away from football in the first place?
"I'd just lost the buzz," says Keane. "I hadn't got the desire anymore. It's hard to explain. I want to be challenging. I am one of those lads who doesn't want to go through the motions of the season."
While Sligo were a team in transition, the situation at Dundalk is very different. There's a palpable sense in which this is their moment. What Keane calls 'the buzz' is more than apparent. "It's there in and around the town," he adds.
"People are coming out in their droves to watch us home and away. It's great for the fans who've supported the team through thick and thin. It's only four years since the team was nearly out of existence so it's great for the fans who've been through the mill.
"We're going strong on the domestic front and there's the chance to win the double-double. That would be great. But Europe is massive for the whole League of Ireland because it gives us good exposure. It just shows there is talent within the league.
"These lads have the desire to win things and it's great to see. They look after themselves on and off the pitch. I've come into a team that's flying. In fact, it's going to be hard to break into that team but with the amount of fixtures you know you're going to get game time.
"It's a game every three days at the moment. You do lose the track of the days. We were training on Sunday and you just forget with the games coming round so fast. But if you ask any professional, they prefer to play rather than train.
"Having played on Monday, it's Thursday in Alkmaar, Shamrock Rovers on the Tuesday and then again on the Friday before we play Tel Aviv. Thankfully, we are going strong in the league so that'll help us."
It's a dramatic story and one that Keane could not have expected to find himself at the heart of when coaching the Isle of Man in a tournament in Italy during the summer. "I really enjoyed it," says Keane. "That's what I want to do when I'm finished with the football.
"In the meantime, it's great to get an insight into how the best manager in the country works. I want to see how he operates and pick up bits and pieces off him. I also want to get more European experience because that's invaluable when it comes to your coaching."
Coaching is his future, Keane is preparing to take the UEFA A Licence, but first there's football to play. "My contract is up in December so we'll see how it goes," he adds. "I could finish full stop then but we'll see." Not least because Dundalk could still be in Europe.
Denied a dream tie with Manchester United, some see this as a nightmare draw for the club. Zenit do not possess the star power of United or even Ajax or Inter, but they are the second highest ranked team in the competition. AZ are fellow former UEFA Cup winners too.
And yet, Keane is optimistic that Tallaght Stadium could see something rather more spectacular than the 2011/12 season when predecessors Shamrock Rovers lost all six of their group games. "I think Dundalk are better equipped this time around," says Keane.
"When the draw was made, a lot of people messaged us saying it was a tough draw. But the first thing we thought is that we can get something here. It's a great opportunity. We're not looking to just turn up and make up the numbers. We're looking to get out of the group."
