JOEY O’BRIEN SAYS he wants Shelbourne to make memories of a lifetime by qualifying for the league stage of European competition this season.

The Reds boss saw his side progress to the second qualifying round of the Champions League after a 2-1 aggregate win over Linfield.

Victory means the League of Ireland side are guaranteed at least a place in the Uefa Conference League play-off round with the potential to earn over €3 million by qualifying.

A second-round Champions League tie with Qarabag is on the horizon next week, though, with the first leg at home in Tolka Park on Wednesday. Defeat to the Azerbaijan giants would see Shels head for the third round of the Europa League.

Shamrock Rovers earned over €6m after they reached the knockout stages of the Conference League last season and O’Brien spoke of the reality such money brings.

“This opens up another door from the club’s point of view. Here, listen, the people people at this club don’t get involved at this level to make money. The lads in the background do it because they absolutely love it.

“Ultimately, to get the real money, you must make group stages. I told to the lads in there that’s the aim. We don’t want this to be our want our European memory. We want to go and create more history by qualifying for the groups.”

O’Brien said games in Europe are the ones he can remember from his own playing days and he revealed that he challenged his squad to step up and take on the European challenge after Damien Duff resigned last month.

The Dubliner stepped up from No.2 and is now unbeaten in five games.

“It wasn’t something I had planned, just the way it worked out,” he said of taking the job. “I just said to the lads in there, the manager had a huge say in this and the squad he built, the success that we had last year, a huge part of him created this night, it was up to us and the players, not to me, I said to the players when I took over, you take on the baton, he stepped aside, you take it and run with it and see how far we can go.

“The build-up around this game since the draw was made, it’s a massive, massive game. You don’t get that in league football. Everything that’s at stake, going through and the possibilities that it opens up. It was a great night for the football club.”

It was a manic end to the first half with Shels conceding a penalty and seeing Linfield draw level on the night after Ali Coote’s earlier goal. The away side then thought they regained the lead with a well-worked corner only for VAR to intervene and the official on the pitch rule it out after checking his pitchside screen.

“I just said to the lads, don’t have a regret, this one will not let you by, if you regret this. It’s great for us that we don’t have that regret,” O’Brien said.

“These two games, with VAR has added something, you have the peno last week, you start off well and get a peno and you think, we are on the front foot, it’s overturned. The early subs we had to make, the worked corner, that was a mad few minutes, they equalise, we went up the other end, Davey [McAllister] had drawn up that set play and felt it could have worked and it worked a treat, we thought it worked a treat and then VAR steps in.

“Going in at half time the lads were a bit flat, we had that emotion of being really high and then back to thinking, they are back in the game. I said to the lads, we are still winning the tie, we just need to go out and dominate possession and we’ll get more chances.”

O’Brien hailed the “brilliant” Mipo Odubeko up front and heaped praised the “excellent” JJ Lunney and Kerr McInroy for helping dictate play even more after Linfield had defender Ben Hall sent off on 63 minutes.

“I thought we were better team over two legs but sometimes you don’t always get what you deserve.”

Shels did here and now a proper European adventure beckons.