Bosnia-Herzegovina v Portugal:INJURIES, SUSPENSIONS and lack of squad depth mean coach Safet Susic faces tough choices over which players to field against Portugal.
Bosnia’s defence will miss long-term casualty Mensur Mujdza with a broken metatarsal bone in his foot, while Boris Pandza and Sasa Papac are suspended for the first leg in Zenica.
The makeshift back four likely to start against the Portuguese looked shaky in Tuesday’s 2-1 warm-up win over local first division club Zeljeznicar Sarajevo.
“I knew very little before this game what team I would pick for the Portugal game and now I am none the wiser,” he said afterwards. “It’s not just the defence giving me a headache, it’s also the midfield because we have a lot of attacking midfielders with an instinct to go forward. With a team structured like that, you have to score at least two or three goals to beat any opposition and that’s not going to be easy against a team of Portugal’s quality.”
Playmaker Miralem Pjanic, who has been in good form for his club Roma this season, was more confident than Susic. “There is no doubt Portugal are strong but we are also a high-quality team and we have to take the game to them rather than hide on the pitch.”
Portugal, who beat Bosnia 2-0 on aggregate in a 2010 World Cup play-off, will hope for a repeat of their clinical performance on a bumpy pitch in the second leg in Zenica two years ago. They will be boosted by the scintillating form of captain Cristiano Ronaldo, who rifled in his fourth hat-trick of the season for Real Madrid in last weekend’s 7-1 thumping of Osasuna in the Spanish league.
Coach Paulo Bento struck a note of caution, stressing Bosnia had improved dramatically since their double header in November 2009. “There is a very wide gap between the two encounters, Bosnia have a quality team and are more mature, as is the case with Pjanic and (Manchester City striker Edin) Dzeko, he said. “Each team has a 50 percent chance of qualifying. We will have to adapt to the stadium in Zenica and the pitch conditions so we might have to play in a different way than we usually do.”
PROBABLE LINE-UPS
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: Begovic; Zahirovic, Spahic, Besic, Lulic; Pjanic, Rahimic, Misimovic, Medunjanin; Ibisevic, Dzeko.
PORTUGAL: Patricio; Pereira, Alves, Coentrao, Rolando; Meireles, Pepe, Moutinho; Ronaldo, Postiga, Nani.
