SOCCER:IF THERE is ever a history book written on the subject of there being no easy games in international football, then the Republic of Ireland's two away games against Macedonia would be sure to secure a couple of chapters which would make for some harsh reading.
Before the first match in 1997, Mick McCarthy had warned his men they could not “afford to get away from the basics of defending with discipline”. However, somewhere along the line the message seemed to become garbled and the boys in green put almost as much distance between themselves and defending with discipline as it is possible to imagine.
The Macedonians made us pay for that carelessness with a dramatic 3-2 victory and showed the Irish there is no such thing as a soft touch. However, the point was more cruelly driven home two years later when the failure to defend an injury-time corner cost Ireland a place at Euro 2000.
With three of his back five making their competitive debuts tonight in the wake of Sean St Ledger failing to recover from the knee injury he sustained in training on Tuesday, Giovanni Trapattoni was already spreading the message of “disciplined defending” as he named his team in Malahide yesterday.
Another blunder at home on what is the 25th anniversary of Jack Charlton’s miserable first outing as Ireland boss against Wales, and the Italian knows well his chances of impressing the folks back home by leading this Ireland team to a major championship finals will start looking a little remote.
The loss of St Ledger is a blow to the home side as the Preston North End defender had developed a decent partnership at the heart of the Irish defence over the last couple of years. In opting for Darren O’Dea to replace him rather than Dunne’s club-mate Ciarán Clark, the manager has, he says, gone for the man with the greater experience. “You need that to stop others playing at this level,” he said yesterday.
In truth, though, Dunne is really the only selection at the back that won’t generate some serious debate. Clark was also a viable candidate to replace Kevin Kilbane at left back, while a decent case could also be made in the circumstances for playing Marc Wilson either in the centre or on the right where Kevin Foley has been preferred.
Keiren Westwood’s long-time status as next in line to Shay Given for the goalkeeper’s jersey made his selection yesterday a formality but there haven’t been too many clean sheets at Coventry this year and after only a handful of appearances in friendly games on the international front, we may know a good deal more about what the 26-year-old is made of by the close of business.
Not that Trapattoni seems to expect his goalkeeper to be kept all that busy. He and his assistant, Marco Tardelli, have been at pains to suggest Mirsad Jonuz’s men will come and sit deep in the hope of frustrating Ireland and perhaps grabbing something on the break.
The sense amongst the visitors’ travelling party is not quite so negative, though, and there is an expectation that rather than the two banks of four Trapattoni predicted yesterday his men will be seeking to break down, the Italian’s opposite number may well opt to play 4-5-1 with the team’s outstanding talent, Inter Milan’s Goran Pandev, and Ivan Trichkovski attacking from wide positions behind Ilcho Naumoski.
Trapattoni acknowledges that the Macedonians might enjoy a dangerous height advantage at set-pieces but their general ability shouldn’t be underestimated either.
In Pandev and attacking left-back Goran Popov, for instance, they have as many players participating in the latter stages of this year’s Uefa club competitions as their hosts this evening and they could be forgiven for believing they might have opportunities of their own to score against a side that kept just one clean sheet in six attempts last year and two in eight competitive games on Irish soil since Trapattoni took over three years ago.
The team’s saving grace is it tends to score goals as well as concede them and the presence of Robbie Keane despite injuries is a relief given the absence through injury of Leon Best and, due to the birth of his third child, Jonathan Walters.
For all the criticism he receives, the Ireland captain’s record makes him impossible to drop really, although he admits himself he is not quite 100 per cent and Shane Long seems likely to get a run-out over the course of the evening.
James McCarthy, too, will feature, according to the manager who said the decision to replace Paul Green with Darron Gibson was prompted by a belief that the Manchester United midfielder is capable of scoring from just the sort of distance from goal that the Macedonians might settle for keeping the Irish at.
Over the course of the night, the Italian hopes, the efforts of Gibson, the wingers, the strikers and perhaps one defender pushing forward for a cross, will be enough to yield the goal Ireland need.
“Six is enough to get a goal,” he insisted yesterday. “We don’t need nine because then they can hit you on the counter-attack.”
We’ll see this evening whether his men pay anymore heed than McCarthy’s did.
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Westwood (Coventry City); Foley (Wolves), O’Dea (Ipswich Town), Dunne (Aston Villa), Kilbane (Huddersfield Town); Duff (Fulham), Gibson (Manchester United), Whelan (Stoke City), McGeady (Spartak Moscow); Keane (West Ham), Doyle (Wolves).
FYR MACEDONIA: Nuredinoski (Ethnikos Achnas ); Shikov (Ethnikos Achnas), Noveski (Mainz), Grncharov (Apoel Nicosia), Popov (Dynamo Kiev); Demiri (Thun), Tasevski (Levski Sofia), Shumulikoski (Novosibirisk); Trichovski (Apoel Nicosia), Pandev (Internazionale), Naumoski (Mattersburg).
Referee: Istvan Vad (Hungary).
