RUSSIA CAN render Ireland’s efforts all but irrelevant if they avenge their Moscow defeat to Slovakia when the teams meet again this evening, with kick-off 75 minutes ahead of the Irish game.
Nothing but a home win will keep Slovakia in this competition – and aid Ireland as their boss Vladimir Weiss acknowledged yesterday – but even a draw should be enough for the visitors who entertain Andorra in Tuesday’s final Group B game.
“If my players don’t understand what is at stake tonight and realise what we have to do here in Zilina, then they have a problem,” said Advocaat, who earlier this week warned those same players that he will quit if they don’t make Euro 2012.
“We still have qualification in our own hands but Slovakia have already shown us in their win in Moscow that we cannot relax against them.”
The MKS Stadium is sold out for tonight’s game but local confidence is confined to within the Slovakian camp. Those outside the tent, as Mick McCarthy used to say, fear their team will shoot more blanks tonight, just as they did in the 0-0 draw in Dublin and the 4-0 reversal at home to Armenia last month.
Coach Vladimir Weiss doesn’t share that view. “We are in a better position psychologically going into this game than the Russian team,” said Weiss, without left back Marek Cech, strikers Stanislav Sestek (suspended) and Robert Vittek (injured).
“Everybody in Russia expects their team to qualify and that puts all the pressure on their players. I know we will score in this game. I also know Russia’s last four goals have come from deflections. They couldn’t score against Ireland in Moscow. If we play as we did in Russia and defend well, then we can win this one.” Captain Marek Hamsik – the one Slovakian player named by Advocaat at his pre-match briefing – agrees with his manager. “We can score goals, that is all that has been missing from our game of late,” said Napoli’s influential midfielder.
“We will take heart from what we did in Moscow. We had to defend hard that night and take our chance when it came and it will be the same in Zilina. Russia know we can beat them.”
Like his players, Weiss wants to do Ireland a favour.
“People are all the same. The Slovakian people want us to win for Slovakia and the Irish people want us to win for them. We will try,” promised Weiss.
Meanwhile, the game between Armenia and Macedonia in Yerevan could prove no less key in the outcome of the group, the Armenians’ startling 4-0 win away to Slovakia last month giving them a chance of qualifying for a major tournament for the first time.
A win for Armenia tonight and they would travel to Dublin for Tuesday’s final group game knowing that another victory could put them in to the play-offs.
After losing at home to the Republic in their opening game and then conceding a 96th minute equaliser, from a penalty, away to Macedonia, Armenia looked unlikely contenders in the group, but since then they’ve picked up four wins and a draw, their only defeat coming in Moscow.
Macedonia, now managed by John Toshack, are out of contention, and their hopes ahead of the game were hardly helped by the loss of their star man, Napoli’s Goran Pandev, after he suffered a thigh injury in training.
