Euro 2016 spirit can inspire Ireland in new campaign

It is, he says, just another part of the team's history now, but Martin O'Neill will be hoping to see his Ireland team show some of their Euro 2016 spirit here in Serbia on Monday evening. The manager said last week he thought his side could have beaten France during the summer if his players had had more than a couple of days' rest. Two months on, his hopes will be as high as ever.

Ireland have never qualified for a tournament without getting a result in their opening away game, and while not all of them have been as challenging as this, getting even one point on the board would, the manager suggested, be a major boost.

It is a big ask, but it is hard to argue with the manager when he points to the performances against Germany, Bosnia and Italy over the past year as reasons for cautious optimism.

“It’s not possible to play for the draw,” he says, “but in this competition I think it will be so tight, so, so tight, that every point will be valuable. No one will run away with this group. Every point will be valuable.

“In our European qualification campaign we won our opening game in Georgia and those three points proved very, very important for us. But I think that any team that wins away from home in this group will have done very, very well.”

O’Neill declared both Séamus Coleman and John O’Shea fit at his pre-match press conference and the pair were out on the pitch at the Red Star stadium a few minutes later as training began. The Everton right-back seems a certainty to start if he is completely over the ankle problem that has sidelined him since just before the start of the Premier League season, while O’Shea, whose hip injury was never thought to be so serious, is firmly in contention.

Having been such a strong performer in the last campaign, O’Shea might well start here, but O’Neill suggested that the team will most likely evolve over the next 15 months.

“We’ve not made many changes,” he said, “because the European Championships are just over and so the players who have done well there and not retired are here with us now. But I think that over the next two years you would hope there will be that natural progression.”

For now, the main questions remain whether Robbie Brady starts at left-back or further forward, whether Wes Hoolahan plays from the outset and, in this instance, who deputises for James McCarthy. As usual, O’Neill declined to give an indication of which way he is leaning on anything, including Robbie Keane’s successor as captain, although the sense seems to be that, if he is fit, Coleman will retain the armband.

Whatever the result in this game, O’Neill insisted, Ireland’s ultimate aim has to be to win the group, although, he acknowledged, they won’t be alone in that ambition.

“There’s only team that’s certain of qualification, and so I think that your mindset has to be set on that, but so will Wales’s, so will Serbia’s, so will Austria’s,” he said. “After four or five games things might change, but our first task is to make sure we’re not out of the completion before we’re really into it. Three of our opening four games are away from home, and they are really tough games. And I expect this to be tough.

“I think there seems to be an air of rejuvenation about Serbia with the new coach [Slavoljub Muslin] coming in. He has done very well and I think it will be very tough.”

Playing for a win

Muslin, for his part, said that his side will look to beat the visitors and get three early points on the board: “Serbia will be going into each match playing for a win whether we play at home, whether we play away. But especially since our first match in the qualifiers is at home, we will be going for the three points.”

Muslin has allowed a couple of the squad’s younger players, including Liverpool’s Marko Grujic, to rejoin the under-21s for their qualifying game, also against Ireland, in Novi Sad tomorrow, but he retains a strong group with decent options even minus suspended Aleksandar Kolarov and Nemanja Matic.

Branislav Ivanovic will captain a side likely to include players from clubs in at least six leagues. There is clearly potential in the squad, with the solid results achieved in friendlies during Muslin's first month in charge having helped to generate renewed optimism.

Like O’Neill, he says past results are all part of history now. But that is unlikely to stop the Irishman reminding his players what they have shown they can achieve as he prepares them for kick-off on Monday.