Since May 2016, Leicester City winning the Premier League has become the miracle by which all subsequent miracles have been judged.
It's never long before improbable victors are labelled the Leicester City of whatever activity they happen to be improbably excelling in.
However, Stephen Kenny believes that the miracle that's been worked at Oriel Park is greater in scale than that which has been achieved at Leicester.
The Dundalk miracle should become the gold standard.
He spoke about comparisons between Leicester and his own team at his press conference. Kenny thinks that people are forgetting that Leicester are a wealthy football club, and much wealthier than some of its rivals in the Champions League group stage.
I'm very surprised that people are surprised that Leicester came out of the group. I would have seen them surely as favourites to come out of the group, being English champions. To win the Premiership was amazing for them, I must say. But if they've got Jamie Vardy, the English No. 9, who can turn down a move to Arsenal because he's been offered a similar contract by Leicester, that has no comparison to some of our players who would earn less than one hundredth of that.
So, I think it's not really comparable. The fact that Leicester would beat Bruges last night, I would fully expect them to beat Bruges, their budget would be probably four or five times the size of Bruges's budget. I don't think that's such a shock. I think what we're achieving is on a much greater scale.
We're the lowest ranked team in the Europa League. We haven't progressed through the group like Leicester have. But they're a massive club in their own right. Where they've come from in the Championship to win the Premiership is an unbelievable story, I'm not diminishing that, but in a European context I would have fully expected Leicester to get through that group.
From our point of view, no one really gave us a chance of getting a point in the group. And we still have a lot to do to get through, we've to get two results. This is a journey and we've came from nowhere. We understand where we've come from. We've nothing. We've come from the bottom of our own League to go and win three in a row and be on the verge of qualifying for the last 32.
Dundalk play AZ Alkmaar tomorrow knowing that a win will put them in a very strong position heading into the final round of games. Four points from the final two games will guarantee them a spot in the knockout phase.
