Zoff's chilling point

By 9.30 last Saturday night, the temperature at the Dinamo Stadium in the Belarussian capital Minsk was on the cool side. Rain-cum-sleet was falling heavily and not surprisingly, Italian coach Dino Zoff did not want to hang about.

Zoff's side had just won Group One of the European Championship qualifiers with an unimpressive 0-0 draw against Belarus. Zoff would probably have liked nothing better than to head for the airport, pleased with his qualification and happy to draw a veil over the less than scintillating football played by his team.

However, the Italian Football Federation's contract with state broadcaster RAI obliges the national team coach to give an immediate post-match TV interview. Journalist Enrico Varriale got down to business with an opening question that prompted an irritated response.

"Dino, let's be frank about it, the best thing about tonight was the fact that we qualified, no?"

"I don't think that you should be drawing such conclusions, leave that to those whose professional business it is . . . Don't start talking to me about a big-name team having difficulty against a smaller one, look at France, the World Cup winners, held to draws by Iceland and Ukraine . . ."

Zoff, of course, has a point. The fact that nations such as Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland and Russia failed to finish in the first 18 in Europe, while England, Denmark, Scotland and the Ukraine must look to the play-offs to gain a back-door entrance to the Euro 2000 finals yet again underlines the overall levelling out of European soccer.

Irish fans nervously awaiting tomorrow's play-off draw can console themselves with the thought that but for last-gasp happenings in qualifiers in Munich, Moscow and Paris last Saturday, the line-up for tomorrow's draw could easily have included Germany rather than Turkey and France rather than Ukraine.

A goalkeeping error from Russia's Alexandr Filiminov two minutes from time in Moscow put Ukraine into the play-offs, eliminated Russia and promoted France as Group Four winners all in one devastating swoop. Likewise, Germany had good reason to be grateful to goalkeeper Oliver Kahn for goalmouth heroics in their dour 0-0 Munich draw with Turkey.

The Italian media may bemoan the fact that Italy have struggled to consecutive draws against Belarus in recent months, pointing out that Belarus stand 100th in the FIFA rankings while no less a world power than Wales were able to defeat Belarus home and away in Group One, picking up six points where Italy could manage only two.

Yet, Zoff still has his point. These were European Championship qualifiers which dramatically consolidated the now well-established trend that has turned one-time minnows into potential giant-killers. Just reflect on some of the results of the last 14 months - Cyprus beat Spain 3-2, Turkey beat Germany 1-0, Iceland drew 1-1 with France, the Faroe Islands held Scotland to a 1-1 draw and Denmark beat Italy 3-2 in Naples.

One final thought concerns one big name that did not struggle at all - the Czech Republic who won all 10 matches in Group Nine. Even allowing for the relative weakness of this Group (Scotland, Estonia, Lithuania, Bosnia and the Faroe Islands were the other teams), the Czechs' performance merits respect.

Having failed to qualify for France '98 in a group which saw Spain and Yugoslavia go through, the side that contested the last European Championship final at Wembley in 1996 started off again from scratch with a new coach in Jozef Chovanec and with many of the players who had featured at Euro '96 - Suchoparek (Strasburg), Hornak (Sparta Prague), Nedved (Lazio), Poborski (Benfica), Nemec (Schalke 04), Berger (Liverpool) and Kuka (Nuremburg). The rest, it seems, has been plain sailing. Watch out for them at Euro 2000 next summer.