Ireland vs Bulgaria & Italy Preview

The Republic are taking on Bulgaria and Italy in the next few days in a duo of matches that will really make or break this qualifying campaign.

Ireland v Bulgaria, 28th March 2009
First up and probably most importantly is the home game against Bulgaria. A victory for the Boys will pretty much guarentee them at least second place in the group and it must be at least a fairly winnable game, Bulgaria are no great shakes especially with probably their two best players, Berba and Martin Petrov out, as well as the retirement of Hristo Stoikhov. That is not to say that they aren’t a dangerous team, the other Petrov is dangerous enough and Valery Bojinov is finding a bit of form again for the Citizens.

Irelands cause isnt helped either with the loss of the Duffer but Stephen Hunt can do a certain job, even if it is to run with the ball up and down the wing all day long like a puppy dog. I think it will be easy for the players to get caught in the hype of the Italy match but this one is more important I think, and while not spectacular, we are always incredibly solid and hard to break down in Croke Park so the worst result I can see for Ireland is a draw.

Italy vs Ireland, 1st April 2009
On Wednesday of course the boys head to Bari to take on the World Champions. Not an easy task I’d say but its been done before. One more time:

This match will be a battle too of two wily old football heads and two of the most successful managers ever, Marcello Lippi and Giovanni Trappatoni. My kebab vendor, who is from Turin, reckons that il Trap is past it and his methods are outdated (Eamon Dunphy has called it stone age football) and while I cant argue with that it certainly is getting results, and also I think you could say the exact same thing of Lippi, I mean not calling up Antonio Cassano seems ludicrous to me, he probably is the most naturally talented player on the boot excluding Totti. Apparently too the crowd plan to voice their disapprovement at the match, so it could make for a very tricky atmosphere. There will be inevitably a huge Irish contingent at the match too so it should be a great trip away.

The last time the two sides met I think was back in 2005 in a friendly in Croke Park. Italy won that day 2-1, before going on to win the biggest prize of them all. There is a lot of survivors from that day on both teams but for the most part these players won’t have played against Irish opposition, well John O’Shea might know a thing or two about beating them seeing as he always is in the Champions League.

I think there is definately a chance for an upset, if Ireland score first the crowd will get on to Italys back and the longer they can frustrate them the better. I’m not going to be so bold as to predict a victory, but I believe that we can definately get a sneaky draw especially if we win on Saturday, and also is Montenegro decide to kick a few lumps out of Pirlo, de Rossi et al tomorrow.