UEFA Under-19 qualifiers: Having just suffered his most disappointing result in his 20-month long tenure as youth team manager, Seán McCaffrey will seek redemption by achieving perhaps his biggest result yet in Limassol this afternoon.
Only a win over Russia will restore pride after Wednesday's shock 1-0 defeat to Cyprus in Larnaca. More importantly, with the top two in the group qualifying, it would also put Ireland through to the second phase of this year's UEFA qualifiers.
Assuming Ireland win, Cyprus beating Andorra would leave a three-way tie at the top of Group 9, though the hosts would still fail to qualify as they can't improve their goal difference, the worst of the three, as the results with Andorra, the bottom team in the group, don't count in the event of the other three teams finishing level.
"We've got to start much sharper," said McCaffrey who is forced into at least one change today as left-sided midfielder Ian Morris is sidelined with a knee injury. "We've lifted the players by stressing if we win the game we go through. There is nothing more to be said."
Midfielder Joseph O'Brien echoed those sentiments. "Just after the (Cyprus) game we thought we had blown our chances, but we soon realised that it's still in our own hands. Russia are the top team, but if we beat them we're through regardless of what happens in the Cyprus-Andorra game.
"We feel we are good enough to beat them," added the Bolton Wanderers trainee who was a member of an Irish under-17 side that did just that in a tournament in Portugal two years ago.
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