Michael Duffy confident Derry City can 'Finnish' the job in Kuopio

​The in-form winger celebrated his 29th birthday the day after helping the Candy Stripes to a 2-1 victory over KuPS in the first leg at Brandywell but he quickly put the 'buzz' from that memorable night on hold to concentrate on finishing the job in Kuopio this Thursday (K.o. 5pm Irish time).

"It was unbelievable," said the Galliagh man. "We enjoyed that night, that feeling. It was a brilliant buzz but our heads are back on it now and back focussing on Thursday. It's only half a job done," he warned.

"We just have to believe in ourselves; stick to what the gaffer says and enjoy the week. Europe for me is the best part of the season.

"I'm obviously delighted we managed to get through a round and we have another game. Hopefully this continues for another couple of weeks because it's there to be enjoyed.

"It's a massive tournament. You only play against big teams and big nights. You remember those wins.

"Last Thursday night, we'll remember that. It was such a big night. I think we should just believe we can do it and that we can pull off something special and just go and enjoy it!"

With 35 European appearances under his belt with Derry and Dundalk and the experience of playing in the Europa League Group Stages with the Lilywhites, Duffy knows how difficult a task awaits them in Finland.

KuPS returned to the top of the Veikkausliiga on Sunday after a 2-0 home win over KTP and have been knocking on the door of group-stage football.

They will welcome back several first team regulars including three of their African defenders who missed the first leg due to visa issues.

However, Duffy reckons Derry can advance to a third round qualifier for the first time since 2006 if they repeat their second half performance from Thursday.

"You're in the competition for a reason and we have to believe in ourselves. We've put ourselves in an unbelievable position.

"We know how tough it will be out there but we'll go there and try and replicate what we did on Thursday and hopefully we can go and create history because it's been a long time since Derry has got to the third round stage.

"It's great to have the opportunity and great we're going there after a 2-1 win.

"It will be a different task and more difficult task. I think those players who missed the first leg are regular starters for them and big players so they were a loss for them.

"We've watched them and they seem like quality players. Those players coming back into their team and with them playing at home it's obviously a positive for them but we just have to think about our positives from last week and believe we can pull something off.

"We already know how tough HB Torshavn was out there and the difference to playing at home. So going away is always tough. They are in brilliant form at home too and have won their league a couple of years in a row.

"So they love playing at home and we know how hard it's going to be. It's going to be a different game out there but we just have to focus on how we played in that game and take all the positives from it.

"We're in a great position going into it so we have to go and enjoy it. They're a well drilled team but once we got into stride and got our press right we were able to get on top.

"We'll have the same game plan but we'll have to be at it 100 percent on Thursday."

Duffy and fellow winger Paul McMullan had the KuPS fullbacks on the ropes during the final 30 minutes at Brandywell last week and the ex-Celtic man is hoping to have a similar effect on the game on Thursday night.

"We got a lot of joy on my side and Paul's with running power and on the counter attack.

"It's a style of football which is probably different to teams in their league and theirs is different to ours as well. So it's about working each other out and that's the good thing about Europe, you're playing against a lot of different teams with different styles and that's why it's so good."

His enthusiastic celebration for Cian Kavanagh's goal summed up the feelings of every supporter in the ground last week. He's scored and added an assist in his last two games and Duffy's hoping for that run to continue this week.

"That's what I want to be doing every game. I want to be setting goals up or scoring and I'm doing that at the minute. I hope I go on a run of constantly doing that and that we can get results from it.

"It was brilliant. Myself and Ben (Doherty) have done that throw-in now a few times, we've been working on it down our side.

"We were buzzing it came off and then I just can't control myself when I'm celebrating sometimes," he laughed.

"It's some buzz. I've been caught a few times with some mad pictures when I’m celebrating and I always get slagged about it but I don't mind it because that feeling is just brilliant.

"I knew how big that goal was and the turnaround in that match. The atmosphere around the Brandywell, it was a brilliant feeling.”