Top coach who 'knows what to expect'

WHEN THE coaches of international sides seeded sixth in their qualifying groups give press conferences ahead of home games, the visiting media usually arrive with a two-item agenda: the first to discover the most amusing occupations of his players.

Well, not only are the Montenegrins all full-time but they'll have four players playing Champions League football over the coming weeks compared to Ireland's three. While Zoran Filipovic did briefly touch on that favourite topic of the minnow's manager - the need to play with pride - he then underlined the scale of the difference between him and the men who manage San Marino, Andorra and Liechtenstein by identifying midfield as the area where tonight's game will be won and suggesting he has the technically better players there.

"It's a clash of two styles," said the 55-year-old, "and the win will come from midfield. Whichever side wins there will take the game. Ours is technically better but I fear Ireland's strength and the willingness of their players to die on the pitch if the result depends on it."

Born in Podgorica in the days when it was still called Titograd, Filipovic has been around, both as a player - he remains Red Star Belgrade's all-time top scorer in European competition - and coach. He has worked in Portugal, Italy, back at Red Star and also within the Yugoslav national set-up. Having been one of Slobodan Santrac's staff at France '98, he was an assistant to Vujadin Boskov for the team's qualifiers against Ireland and travelled to the Euro 2000 finals too.

Like Georgia's coach Hector Cuper, he is all too familiar with Giovanni Trapattoni and actually had the Italian give a talk to a Serbia and Montenegro youth team he was coaching while they were on a trip to Portugal and the now Ireland manager was in charge of Benfica.

"He's one of the most successful coaches in Europe or the world and Ireland have done very well to hire him," he says. "I know him very well and I know his players very well. I have watched a lot of DVDs so we know what to expect.

"I've told my players to be careful, that the Irish don't play the typical English game. For a start there are not the long balls, it's a clever game with short passes and the pattern of their play changes from attack to attack.

"They are a good team," he concluded, "and the group is as close as it could be after the first matches. But Bulgaria are still the favourites for the second place while Italy, we know already, will win it."

The other item on the journalists' agenda is to try to confirm that there will be a way of filing their copy from the stadium after the game.

As it turned out, a hugely helpful Montenegrin media officer confirmed that there would be wireless internet functioning in the press areas this evening although he warned it might be slow for the locals know that it will be turned on during matches and tend to congregate in cafes adjacent to the ground to download movies.

It was not entirely what we wanted to hear although, in the absence of a chiropodist, carpenter or candlestick-maker to poke fun at, it was, in its own way, vaguely comforting.