Clondalkin born Dylan Connolly and teamate Haris Zeb played for Auckalnd City at the FIFA Club World Photos by Shane Wenzlick

Dylan on top of the world at club finals

Michael Howley July 3, 2025 9:19 am

SWITCHING the Leinster Senior League for the club World Cup Dylan Connolly was Ireland’s sole representative at the tournament.

Lining out for Auckland City at the FIFA Club World Cup held in America. Clondalkin born Connolly represented the New Zealand outfit after making the move out of Ireland two years ago.

“If you’d said it to me two years ago when I was playing for Lucan in the second division of the Leinster senior, in two years time you’d be playing in the World Cup I would have said come on, you know it just doesn’t sound real.”

“I was just ready for a bit of a change I think. Football was kind of stalling as well so it came at the perfect time.

If I had been playing in the League of Ireland or at a higher level it could have persuaded me to stay.”

“As soon as you move over to New Zealand and get involved in football you find out who they are pretty quick.

‘They’ve dominated everything here for the last ten or twenty years. They were established in 2004 and pretty much since then they’ve bossed football over here.”

While Auckland City are the big fish in New Zealand and Oceania the pond got much bigger when they found themselves in a group at the Club World Cup with Benfica, Boca Juniors and Bayern Munich.

Dylan himself works as a physio and the rest of the players involved with Auckland City all have regular day jobs also.

They found themselves coming up against the likes of Harry Kane and Thomas Muller.

While Auckland would be handily defeated by Bayern Munich, the game against Argentinian giants Boca Juniors will stick in the minds of many.

“We went over as these amateurs that no one knew about. We got beaten quite badly by Bayern Munich, I think when people started to realise who we were.

‘Amateur team, part time and we all work day jobs. The narrative shifted completely and we became everyone’s second team in the tournament.”

“Coming into that Boca game we had a lot more fans than what we started the tournament with.

‘Every Brazilian was supporting us, every neutral in America was supporting us at that stage.

‘Boca went into that game and they had to win 7-0 to have any chance of qualifying. For us to come out of that game with a 1-1 draw is just unbelievable.

‘Everything that we practiced and planned just happened on the day. You couldn’t write it, doing it in front of the Boca fans who sang for 96 minutes non stop.

‘The perfect way to round off the trip.”

Unfortunately despite the incredible result against Boca Juniors, Auckland were eliminated from the competition after losing their previous two games against Bayern and Benfica. It is back to reality for Dylan Connolly who returned to New Zealand this past weekend.

“Looking back on it already it’s just crazy to think that it even happened.

‘Today was my first day back at work and I was going in thinking “what just happened”.

‘Getting to play against all these professional players you grew up watching, you get to have this bubble where you are one of them, you’re living like a pro and all of a sudden you’re back to reality.

‘I made some memories that will last forever and things that you tell your kids and your grandkids and your mates. It’s unbelievable that we had the opportunity to do it.”