on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nAnd O’Dowda says his 100th-minute goal against the Tractor Boys will live long in the memory.<\/span><\/p>\n“That was special,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n“It’s probably the best moment I have had in a Cardiff City shirt, 100%. <\/span><\/p>\n“It makes it even more special after being out for six months or so.<\/span><\/p>\n“The build-up, the whole journey I have had, coming back from the injury and having a little setback, I couldn’t write it.”<\/span><\/p>\nO’Dowda’s elation following the Bluebirds’ 2-1 triumph over Kieran McKenna’s side came after a prolonged period of injury struggles.<\/span><\/p>\nEven before undergoing surgery earlier this season, the 28-year-old had been feeling pain.<\/span><\/p>\n“In pre-season I felt a bit of discomfort,” explained the Irishman.<\/span><\/p>\n“I didn’t really think anything of it. I am probably the type just to get on with it, but I probably should have disclosed it to the medical team and put my foot down.<\/span><\/p>\n“After the first four games, playing in a lot of pain, I had a scan and had an operation on a couple of things. It was hard, quite testing.<\/span><\/p>\n“But credit to the medical team. They have been really diligent with me, very persistent, dealing with my mood swings.”<\/span><\/p>\nIn addition to his Cardiff team-mates and the club’s staff and medics, O’Dowda is grateful to his family, friends and two dogs Poppy and Murphy for supporting him through his rehabilitation.<\/span><\/p>\nBut the former Bristol City and Oxford United man has also opened up on the pivotal influence of life coach Jamie Edwards, who has helped him throughout his career.<\/span><\/p>\n“Mentally it was hard watching the lads and itching to get back out there, so I am just happy I can contribute to this team,” said the 27-cap international.<\/span><\/p>\n“There’s more to me than football I’d like to think, but it is a massive part of my life.<\/span><\/p>\n“When you are not doing it, you feel like an impostor. Mentally it was testing.<\/span><\/p>\n“I live here on my own. That makes it difficult, especially early on when I was accepting how long I was going to be out for. <\/span><\/p>\n“It was tough. But I am open and honest. I express my feelings. I work with a really good life coach 24 hours a day and he has helped massively.<\/span><\/p>\n“I have worked with him in good times and bad, on the field and off the field. He will come and visit me or I will visit him.<\/span><\/p>\n“I think it’s important. He has been with me on this journey all these years and he knows everything about me.<\/span><\/p>\n“He has helped me massively. I think it’s important you look after yourself physically and you look after yourself mentally.” <\/span><\/p>\nHaving inspired Cardiff to a fourth successive win in only his third outing since returning from his lay-off, O’Dowda is now looking up.<\/span><\/p>\nErol Bulut’s team sit just five points adrift of the Championship’s top six with nine matches of the regular season still to play.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd O’Dowda says Cardiff can relish their trip to Swansea City next weekend as they bid to continue their push for a play-off spot.<\/span><\/p>\nCardiff City ended a run of four successive defeats against Swansea City with a 2-0 derby win in September 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n“We are on a good wave at the moment and we need that to continue,” he concluded.<\/span><\/p>\n“We have a really good squad. I think the foundations have been set and there is definitely a belief from everyone in the dressing room and hopefully the fans as well.<\/span><\/p>\n“We need to be consistent. We can’t take our foot off it. <\/span><\/p>\n“It’s a massive game on Saturday. I definitely know how much that means to this city, this club. <\/span><\/p>\n“The full focus is to get that one ticked off and I guess you never know.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Callum O’Dowda joined Cardiff City in June 2022 after being released by Bristol City Following a torrid six months on the sidelines, Callum O’Dowda can be forgiven for fully enjoying his time in the spotlight. The Cardiff City man made his long-awaited return from a groin injury earlier this month and scored a dramatic injury-time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50],"tags":[9612,2676,1657,297,1309,2568,950,2958,283,12539,12540,8051],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30181,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30179\/revisions\/30181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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