Soccer:Estonia manager Tarmo Ruutli left whatever fight was left in him for the privacy of the dressing room when he solemnly addressed the media this afternoon, revealing little if anything of his plans to overturn a 4-0 deficit against the Republic of Ireland tomorrow evening.
Nothing went to plan for the hosts in Tallinn on Friday night as they saw two men dismissed and their hopes of a dream appearance at Euro 2012 dismantled by Giovanni Trapattoni’s side, who scored through Keith Andrews, Jonathan Walters and captain Robbie Keane (two).
He stayed away from that cliché, but there was a strong sense that the restoration of some pride was foremost in his mind.
“If not four, then at least some, of course,” he proffered when asked if his weakened side had the requisite firepower to resurrect the tie. “We will try and score and create more possibilities than we did in the home game. We lost one player (Andrei Stepanov) and it was really hard to create something.”
He added: “It will be clear tomorrow, 4-0 gives the team a clear path normally. We try to give our best and make the evening interesting for the thousands that come to the games. Maybe Ireland will qualify but it doesn't matter, you go and try to win the game and this is what we will do tomorrow.”
He steered clear of criticising Hungarian referee Vikto Kassai, who showed two yellows to Stepanov in the first half, before brandishing the same to his central defensive partner Raio Piiroja and booking goalkeeper Sergei Pareiko to rule him out of tomorrow’s game as well.
“We can’t say we lost the last game because the referee did something wrong. The first two goals were lost duels in the air. The referee cannot score for us.”
The absentees mean he will have to rejig his line-up but not his approach. Despite the odds, they come to win first and will wait to see by how much. Away results against Northern Ireland and Serbia during the group stages offer some hope victory can be achieved.
“That is one of the things that we can think. We have this experience in some games and we did well in some games, so why not repeat it tomorrow.”
Republic of Ireland:Shay Given (Aston Villa); John O'Shea (Sunderland), Richard Dunne (Aston Villa), Sean St Ledger (Leicester City), Stephen Ward (Wolverhampton Wanderers); Damien Duff (Fulham), Glenn Whelan (Stoke City), Keith Andrews (Ipswich Town), Stephen Hunt (Wolverhampton Wanderers); Kevin Doyle (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy).
Estonia(probable): Pavel Londak (Bobo Glimt); Enar Jaager (Aalesunds), Taavi Rahan (Tianjin Songjiang), Ragnar Klavan (AZ Alkmaar), Dmitri Kruglov (Rostov); Taijo Teniste (Sogndal), Martin Vunk (Famagusta), Konstantin Vassiljev (Amkar Perm), Joel Lindpere (New York Red Bulls); Kaimar Saag (Silkborg), Vladimir Voskoboinikov (Himki).
