Aberdeen captain Joe Lewis hopes the Dons can take advantage of a unique campaign with two Scottish Cups on offer by beating Celtic in tomorrow’s Scottish Cup semi-final.
The Dons are bidding to end a 30-year wait for success in the national competition, but Lewis sees no reason why his side shouldn’t target winning the competition twice in one season.
Aberdeen were originally scheduled to face Celtic in the last four on April 12, but the tie was delayed by almost seven months after Scottish football was shut down by the coronavirus pandemic.
Derek McInnes’ side head to Hampden in good form and will feel they are capable of finally ending their Hampden hoodoo against the Hoops.
The Dons were beaten by Celtic at Hampden in the finals of the 2017 Scottish Cup, the 2018 and 2016 League Cups, as well as the 2019 Scottish Cup semi-finals.
Lewis knows a victory this weekend would earn the Dons a place in December’s final when they would likely start as favourites against either Hearts or Hibernian who meet tomorrow.
And, with the 2020-21 Scottish Cup still to be played, Lewis is relishing a unprecedented opportunity to try to win the competition twice in quick succession.
He said: “We won’t get too ahead of ourselves yet, but we certainly feel that we’re capable of that.
“We go into every game that we play expecting to win and feeling that we can win, so there’s no reason that can’t happen.
“But we’ve got a massive semi-final to deal with first and then the whole tournament for this season’s cup ahead of us.
“The thought of that is brilliant, yeah, but there’s a lot of work to go into it before we get to anything like that.”
Lewis succeeded Graeme Shinnie as Dons captain last summer following the defensive midfielder’s move to English Championship side Derby County.
The former Norwich City and Peterborough United goalkeeper would love to be the Aberdeen captain who finally gets their hands on the trophy at Hampden.
He said: “It would be huge. I’ve played in cup finals here before and just fallen short against a very good Celtic team.
“We feel like it’s a big opportunity for us this season, the way we’re playing. We’ve got a lot of confidence which has been boosted by the results we’ve had recently.
“We’d like to keep that momentum going. We’ve got that attacking threat and we feel that we can cause any team real problems.
“Carrying that forward threat helps everyone have confidence in all areas of the game.”