EURO 2012 Qualification – Republic of Ireland vs Russia, (preview)
Trapattoni’s Irish national team takes on Russia in what is expected to be a tough encounter for both the sides. Ireland will be hurting from their failure to make it to the FIFA World Cup in South Africa after they were apparently cheated out of their spot
on the plan thanks to a Thierry Henry handball.
Nonetheless a lot of time has passed since that match in Paris against France as Ireland look to make it to another top level international tournament in the shape of European Championships of 2012.
Russia also failed to make it to the FIFA 2010 World Cup and thus after impressing at the European Champions of 2008, the Russian national football team will be striving to qualify in impress manner for the European Champions which was scheduled to be held
in Ukraine and Poland in 2012.
Ireland have had a much better start to their qualification campaign than the Russians, even though both the teams have played the same amount of games, they have had different results.
Russia played their first qualification match against Andorra and easily won the game by scoring two goals without conceding a reply. In their second match, the Russian national team ended up as second best to Slovakia, who won on Russian soil by scoring
a one goal victory. On the other hand, Ireland have been more convincing in their performances as they won their first qualification matchup against Armenia by a goal to nil whereas in their second qualifier they battered a poor Andorra side by three goals
to one, to gain all three points.
Ireland have done themselves a huge favour by gathering all six points from their opening two encounters as they have propelled themselves to the top of their own group. Conversely, Russia find themselves in deep trouble as they have dropped points against
relatively lesser known opposition already but these are still early days in the qualification process therefore d**k Advocaat’s men can turn it around in time to qualify for the European Champions.
Russia can take heart from the fact that the Irish national team will be without their star Fulham winger, Damien Duff, Duff is sidelined with a calf injury, which has kept him out of action for Fulham as well. So it is quite likely that he will feature
in Friday night’s encounter against Russia.
Keith Andrew’s is another problem along with Keith Treacy. Both the Irish national team footballers will be absent due to their very own fitness problems as Andrew battles with a groin problem and Treacy is fatigued. Stephen Kelly and Darren O’Dea are also
set to miss out for Ireland; to cover for these injured players Trapattoni has called upon Seamus Coleman and Marc Wilson to be active participants in the Irish national team squad for the European Championship qualification rounds.
Alternatively, for the Russians, their striker Roman Pavlyuchenko is set to miss both of their upcoming qualification matches against Ireland and Macedonia. The Tottenham striker is sidelined due to an ankle injury. Aleksandr Kerzhakov’s fitness is also
under doubt but Igor Akinfeev, the CSKA Moscow goalie will be fit to keep goal for his national team against Ireland.
d**k Advocaat isn’t expected to shift his squad around that much as he looks to find consistency in his team’s displays; regardless the Dutch manager has called up Sergey Parshivluyk from Sparta Moscow and Pavel Mamaev of CSKA. Both the young midfielders
are set to feature for Russia either against Ireland or against Macedonia next week.
Russians have been especially suspect in recent qualification campaigns as far as their away from home performance is concerned, that coupled with the fact that Dublin isn’t an easy place to travel to makes Ireland favourites to get all three points from
this encounter. It will be a great result for Russia though if they can somehow wrestle away a point or all three from the Aviva Stadium.
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