The Hindmarsh captain admits he is torn between his role as a teammate and position as a friend when it comes to the 19-year-old striker’s future because enhancing World Cup chances far outweigh a few extra dollars to stay put.

Burns teed up two goals for Dodd in Wednesday night’s 4-1 Asian Champions League win over Vietnamese outfit Binh Duong.

The youngster also teed up the opening goal for Lucas Pantelis with some nifty footwork being followed by a killer pass.

It was a contribution that left coach, teammates, supporters and media salivating but Dodd feels you’d better enjoy it while you can.

Burns has repeatedly been linked with a move to Norwegian club SK Brann after trialling with them in February, and he has consistently insisted no deal has been done.

But Dodd told au.fourfourtwo.com today: “It makes sense for him to go to Europe.

"As a teammate I’d love Burnsy to stay as long as possible and help us progress further. As a friend I just want to see him go as far as he can.

“He wants to be part of the Olympics, he wants to be part of the World Cup in South Africa and that’s absolutely right.

“I think it will be sooner rather than later that he looks for the next challenge."

He added: "There’s talk about bringing in an under 23 marquee player scheme in the A-League next year.

"But for me, I think a player would much rather give himself the best possible chance of playing in a World Cup than earn a few extra dollars to stay in Australia.

“I think being involved in a World Cup is going to mean far more to a footballer than that money.

“It’s his decision at the end of the day and he’s the only one who can decide what’s right. For some it (going overseas) works, for some it doesn’t but I think he has it in him to really go on.

“But for the moment, it’s just great to have him in there and doing what he does best for Adelaide United.

“For me he had a fantastic game against Binh Duong and was back to his old self.”

Dodd was delighted to end the night with two goals, a tap in and a header but supporters may have been slightly puzzled by his goal celebration.

He joked: “My six-year-old son is really getting into his football now and he asked me to do this particular routine. I looked up after I’d scored the first one to see him smiling although he told me I should have done an aeroplane for the second one.

“My goal came just after Lucas (Pantelis) had put us in front and I think that really deflated Binh Duong.

“We could have had a few more goals but we spoke at half-time about the need to be patient. When they hit the post at the start of the second half that really gave us a bit of jolt but we scored soon after that and never really looked back.”

Dodd has been deployed as a lone striker in recent ACL games, a position that asks a lot of a player. He said: “I was talking to Bruce Djite about it recently.

"You get through a fair amount of work during the game but it’s one of those situations where you sometimes don’t feel that you’ve contributed too much unless you’ve scored.”