Nicky Devlin admitted he sold the Dons jerseys with a nightmare mistake against Celtic and he believes his outstanding goal in Gothenburg this week was payback to the colleagues who lifted him up from the floor.
Aberdeen produced an excellent comeback against Swedish champions Hacken in the first leg of the Europa League play-off to claim a 2-2 draw after going two goals down and looking in serious trouble.
Last season's joint top scorer Bojan Miovski started the fightback before Devlin - who joined in the summer from Livingston - found himself in an unusual centre forward position and dinked in a classy equaliser after he was set up by the North Macedonian striker for his first goal for the club.
It means Aberdeen are in a strong position for next week's return leg at Pittodrie with a place in the group stages up for grabs.
It's quite a turnaround for the 29-year-old who made a horrendous error a couple of weeks ago when he was short with an attempted headed passback and Kyogo Furuhashi took full advantage to lash in a goal which put Celtic 2-1 up just four minutes after Aberdeen had equalised.
Celtic went on to win 3-1 and Devlin took full responsibility for his error.
But he revealed the comfort he took from the reactions of his Dons colleagues to his howler.
He said: "I know myself I cost us the game against Celtic a couple of weeks ago. I owed the boys a performance and a moment like that.
"Hopefully, that's gone a wee bit to repay them.
"My mistake against Celtic was when there was still an hour to go. If I let it affect me too much I could have been in a really bad situation because Celtic have got quality players and if your head is not in the right place they can punish you.
"They're waiting for someone to switch off.
"But I wasn't allowed to because the reaction from the rest of the boys was incredible. I've never had that before.
"I made a mistake but every single player came up to me and made sure I forgot about it and was ready to go again. That was a big help.
"The manager is trying to build a good dressing room and when you have the likes of Jonny Hayes and Graeme Shinnie in your dressing room then there is going to be good camaraderie!
"Everyone has bought into it
"We have a lot of good nationalities and everyone comes from different backgrounds, but we all seem to get on really well.
"That definitely helps us. We were in a difficult situation in Sweden but I thought the team spirit got us through.
"I've probably not scored a goal as important as that in my career.
"It's a big moment for me. My mum and dad were there. They got here via Copenhagen and had to get a bus and a train up to Gothenburg."
Dons boss Barry Robson reckoned his side could have scored six goals in Gothenburg and they certainly created plenty of chances against a Hacken side unbeaten at home since April.
And Devlin is relishing the prospect of what could be a special European night at Pittodrie next week as they chase a first group stage appearance in this competition for 15 years.
He said: "We are always going to create chances regardless of who we are playing.
"Don't get me wrong, 2-0 down away in Europe is not a great situation to be in. You maybe start thinking then about the next game and how difficult it will be to turn it around.
"We have gone from being in a sticky situation to it now being all to play for in the second leg. We know when we get back to Pittodrie we would fancy ourselves against anyone there.
"Wherever we play we want teams to know they are in a game against us. That's the way the manager recruited and that's the way we play - on the front foot.
"We want teams to know they are up against it when we play them and I thought we did that even in the first half.
"I still thought we had good chances in the first half but we didn't take them. We took them in the second half though.
"Games like next week are why people want to join the club.
"I'm sure it will be a full house and we have to go out and give them a performance.
"It would be phenomenal if we got to the group stages of the Europa League. You don't see it very often for clubs in Scotland, but we know we have a lot of work to do before we get there.
"We have a difficult game against St Mirren first.
"But next week we are coming up against a good side who are dangerous and can score goals. We need to be at it."
