At last night’s MD-1 press-conference at Windsor Park, Stjarnan manager Jökull Elísabetarson said he was impressed by the facilities at Linfield’s home stadium.

“The stadium is really nice and I like the pitch as well, and it’ll be interesting to train on it tonight (Wednesday) and see how it feels to play on it. Grass pitches are fewer and fewer in Iceland – I think we have three left in the Premier League back home. This pitch is really nice and will make less difference than the grass pitches back home.”

The 40-year-old – who spent the bulk of his playing career in his native Iceland, alongside a spell in the USA with Carolina Dynamo – was understandably pleased with how the first leg went, but he reckons it could be a different game in the second leg.

“I thought the first leg was a good game. I think we played really well. It’s hard to come to our pitch, so we will expect a different game here. Linfield played as we expected last week. We were well prepared and didn’t see anything new from Linfield, although we did expect Fitzpatrick to start, but I think he will start this time.

“The home crowd won’t factor into our gameplan, no. We are looking forward to the match, the atmosphere and the pitch. To play a European game is always fun.

“Domestically we have struggled in a few games this year but the team is stepping up at a good time and now we have to climb up the table again to ensure we can be back in Europe again next year.”

Stjarnan captain Gudmundur Kristjánsson also spoke of his excitement. The central defender believes the Icelandic side are a team on the up, reaping the fruits of their labour as their young side continue to develop, and he expects the visitors to play the same way despite their two-goal advantage from the first leg.

“I’m really excited. The pitch looks nice and the stadium is beautiful, and hopefully it’ll be a nice atmosphere to play in. We are looking forward to it. I think we are expecting 40 or 50 away fans, approximately. We hope to draw some energy off our fans because they’ve been brilliant all season long, so it’s nice for us players to feel the strength off the supporters.

“We will keep on playing to our strengths. If we try something different it’s not to our advantage, so I think we’re going to play our style of football which suits us best as that’s what’s got us in this situation.

“In the last two years we’ve been building up a new team which has been going well. We’ve been playing with a lot of young players who have been really stepping it up, so it’s nice to see. We are heading in the right direction I think, and I hope we will keep on heading that way.”

The 35-year-old six-time Iceland International states that Stjarnan have a clear philosophy in how they play the game, however he would like them to be a little bit more clinical should any chances come their way at Windsor Park.

“We had a rocky spell this season but I think we’re getting back on track now. There’s been a couple of reasons and we couldn’t quite find our groove. We played a good game against Vikingur in the Cup semi-final and were beaten on penalties. I think we played well against Linfield last week and I think we saw what we are capable of. I thought we should have scored more goals but hopefully we can play an ever better match and get the win here.

“We like to play out from the back. There are a few teams in Iceland who like that style of football but not many teams play with the same level of risk as we do. We like to get the opponents to press us high and then play through their pressure. I think we’re quite good at that. However, a lot of teams in Iceland play more defensively and with less risk. We like to play high risk, high reward and we have been getting better at it, and we are keen to continue improving as a team.”