Stadium, winning through 3–1 on aggregate. Dundalk drew Legia Warsaw, with the first leg played in the Aviva Stadium in Dublin in front of a crowd of 30,417. They suffered a 2–0 defeat in the home leg, but shocked Legia in the return leg by taking a 1–0 lead with a Robbie Benson volley. With Dundalk pushing for the equaliser that would have taken the tie to extra-time, Legia scored on the break, and won the tie 3–1 on aggregate. Defeat in the play-off round meant that Dundalk qualified for the group stage of the Europa League, only the second Irish team to have done so. A draw with AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands, followed by a victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv in Tallaght Stadium, were the first points earned by an Irish club at this stage of a European competition – both the equaliser in Alkmaar and the winning goal in Tallaght being scored by Ciarán Kilduff. In the third match they took the lead in Tallaght against Zenit St Petersburg, and were 20 minutes from topping the table, before eventually losing 2–1. In a campaign that would run from 13 July to 8 December, five weeks beyond the end of the domestic season, Dundalk failed to pick up any more points in the remaining matches but the performances of Kenny's team had attracted considerable attention. Remote control (2017–2019) Following the club's long campaign in 2016, losing to Rosenborg after extra-time in the Champions League second qualifying round tie the following season was a disappointment, even with the financial and organisational disparity between the sides. In January 2018 the club was taken over by United States-based investors, who had identified European progress as an opportunity. But progress that summer was limited when, after defeating Levadia Tallinn and holding AEK Larnaca scoreless in Oriel Park, three quickfire first half goals in the away leg in Cyprus in the 2018-19 Europa League second qualifying round ended their interest in that year's competition. On foot of winning the League in 2018, they entered the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League first qualifying round. After being seeded in the draw, they faced Riga, drawing the home leg in Oriel Park 0–0. The away leg in Riga was the club's 70th match in European football, which also finished 0–0. After extra-time failed to separate the sides, they won 5–4 in a sudden-death penalty shootout, becoming the