Cypriots lack power, pace and hope

The Opposition: Emmet Malone on why home supporters expect another night of disappointment

In the circumstances it may be understandable but Steve Staunton's insistence Cyprus are an improving team capable of presenting a tough challenge for even the best of international opponents seems just a little generous to the Republic of Ireland's opponents this evening.

They certainly are, as they showed here against Ireland last year, capable of playing some decent football when allowed to, but few teams of any serious quality ever give them the opportunity, and against even teams of rather modest ability their record is dismal.

Staunton cited last year's 1-0 friendly win over Wales as evidence of the threat they can pose and with two strikers playing regular Champions League football as well as a couple of talented midfielders, they do often look capable of scoring goals at home. With a decidedly limited defence made up entirely of locally based players, however, they always look likely to concede, a fact underlined by the 6-1 defeat they suffered on their first outing of the campaign last month in Slovakia.

The team's coach, Angelos Anastasiadis, took quite a beating in the media after that game but insisted at the start of this week he had returned home expecting worse.

Staunton insists the result was harsh on the Cypriots but few locals agree. Blame here is apportioned in roughly equal measure between the back four and the man who, it was hoped, might organise them sufficiently well to make such hammerings a thing of the past.

Anastasiadis, a deeply religious former Greek international who played for Panathinaikos and PAOK, clubs he subsequently led to the quarter-finals of the Champions League and a Greek Cup respectively after he moved into management.

He took on his current job in December 2004 and the team's 3-0 win in the Faroe Islands was taken as a sign of progress. for, weak though the opponents might have been, it was Cyprus's biggest ever away win.

The improvement didn't last long, however, and in the wake of the hefty defeat in Bratislava there are many here who would rather like him to accept one of the offers that are apparently open to him to return to club management in Greece.

What any successor could realistically do to improve the fortunes of the team is open to debate. Up front the Cypriots are fortunate to have Ioannis Okkas and the country's all-time leading scorer, Michael Constantinou, while in midfield Konstantinos Charalampidis is a talented attacking midfielder who plays his club football at PAOK in Greece and right winger Efstathios Aloneftis is reckoned, at 23, to be something of a rising star at his Greek club, Larissa.

There is very little depth to the squad, though, and the defence is based exclusively on players drawn from the likes of Cypriot league leaders Apoel, Anorthosis and AEK. They are short of both power and pace and further hampered by their lack of regular exposure to players of the calibre they have to face while on international duty.

They are not, at least, overly burdened by the weight of expectation among the local population, who rarely turn out in numbers to watch them.

Reserve goalkeeper Antonis Giorgallida, however, is among those here who feel the home side just might be capable of springing some sort of surprise this evening in Nicosia. Because of injuries and poor recent results, he suggested earlier this week, the Irish will be vulnerable. His view, in short, is that if Cyprus, who came so close to beating Ireland a year ago, can't actually win against the Republic this time around they never will.

Most locals, nevertheless, remain steadfastly resigned to yet another night of disappointment and unless Staunton's side turn in an even more ramshackle performance than the one they produced 12 months ago, it's difficult to see them being proven wrong.