Maltese growing in confidence

A growing confidence in the Maltese team management that this evening's game in Valletta could mark a major breakthrough for the home side may end up helping Mick McCarthy as Ireland look to stay in the hunt for a place at next summer's European Championships.

Over the years the Maltese have had precious few particularly good days to remember. There was a win at a neutral venue over Iceland more than a decade ago, an away defeat of Estonia in 1994 and most recently a draw in Minsk but tonight's opponents have never won a competitive international at home and have rarely managed to avoid defeat.

Under their current coach, Josef Ilic, they have been making a concerted effort to improve matters, however. The new man didn't get off to a great start in the European campaign despite the fact that his entire squad trained together almost every day of the week - something which their various clubs have since managed to put an end to - but some solid performances of late have finally started to raise expectations.

In July Ilic took the entire panel, minus the Valletta players, who were involved in European club competition, to Poland where they trained together for 10 days, working especially hard to tighten up the team's defence. Before returning home they beat the Polish under-21 side and afterwards they built on last season's respectable 1-2 defeat by Germany with a determined performance in Croatia.

Again they lost 2-1, but after leading the Yugoslavs by a goal for almost half an hour, they eventually lost 4-1. However, the performance was seen as highly encouraging, not least because two of the team's strongest players - John Buttigieg and Jeffrey Chetcuti - were both absent through suspension. Both will be back for this evening's game.

Buttigieg, who had a spell at Brentford, is one of the few players in the squad to have played professional football overseas but like the rest of the current panel, the 35-year-old sweeper is now playing his club football in the Maltese league.

The league is weaker than the National League but there are similarities. Facilities are quite good and leading players can earn £500 a week plus bonuses (Valletta players last year received £12,000 each for winning the league). Crowds at league games tend be numbered in hundreds although there is certainly considerable interest amongst the population at large with more than 20,000 turning up for the game between Valletta and Birkirkara which decided the title a couple of seasons ago.

However, Ilic is bullish about his side's chances of finally having some say on who progresses from Group Eight, with the Yugoslav yesterday announcing after training that "they (the Irish) are going to be tough customers, hard to deal with, but we have prepared well and feel that we can finally get some points before the end of the qualifying process."

Ilic is not alone in feeling that even by their standards, the Maltesse performed very poorly when they visited Dublin last year but his view that "then we were a spent force having just played Croatia where as this time it is the Irish who will be tired after tough back to back games while we will be fresh and ready," may be just a little too upbeat for even the generally cautious McCarthy.

Ireland's performance in Croatia, where the Maltese were amazed to see the Irish show no more ambition than they have traditionally done away from home, has further bolstered the hopes of the locals.

There is an acceptance inside and outside the national team's camp, though, that goals against the tightest defence in Group Eightwill be hard to come by.

The team's best players are at the back and in central midfield and while they have scored against every other team in the group so far they have yet to come with anything approaching a striker of international standard.

Gilbert Agius, who is expected to start up front this evening, was the top scorer in the domestic league last season with 20 goals for Valletta. But he has scored just twice in more than 40 appearances for his country, while his likely striking partner, Nigerianborn Chucks Nwoko, has not yet found the net in 10 games for his adopted country.

To be fair, being a Maltese striker has generally been a fairly lonely occupation, but Ilic promises positive attacking football this evening and hints that a home win is far from out of the question. If he's right, it's a result that would be remembered even longer on the small Mediterranean island than it would be back in Ireland.