Republic of Ireland was regarded as the weakest team in the group of death.
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The learning curve for Ireland is steep and they have to hope their experiences against Sweden will help them to climb it. But before Saturday’s game against Belgium in Bordeaux, the mood is positive.
And moments after the break they did break the deadlock after more good work down the right by Everton’s Seamus Coleman, jinking past his man to ascend into the box and produce a delicious dink to Hoolahan, who struck a brilliant half volley towards goal and past Isaksson to give Ireland the lead. “To get a goal for Ireland in the Euros is a great achievement”.
“Then we had to weather a storm and defended as strongly as we could but overall there is real disappointment we haven’t taken all three points”.
Wes Hoolahan had fired Martin O’Neill’s side ahead at the Stade de France but the Boys In Green could not hang on for all three points.
“We performed better in the second half because they sat back”. But the boys should be proud.
Ciaran Clark was the culprit – but he was placed in an invidious position as he tried to clear Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s cross, only succeeding in heading the ball past Darren Randolph.
John O’Shea, in front of an open goal, then missed the ball by millimeters after Clark headed on a corner.
Shane Long came agonisingly close on 29 minutes after the Swedish defence couldn’t close him down quick enough to prevent an excellent shot from the edge of the area which sailed agonisingly close to the crossbar, Isaksson comfortably beaten.
The 32-year-old Stoke striker limped off 63 minutes into Monday night’s 1-1 draw with Sweden at the Stade de France and later admitted he had been in pain from the start after a week-long battle to make himself available.
“We’re definitely not happy with our first 50 minutes”, Hamren said.
“We passed quicker, we made better use of moving the ball from one side of the pitch to the other; we made better use of our left-back Martin Olsson”.
With Belgium and Italy favourites to progress from the group, either Ireland or Sweden really needed to take all 3 points from this evening’s match to threaten the top 2 places in the group, which automatically qualifies teams for the knockout round.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic rescued Sweden yet again in a 1-1 draw with Ireland on Monday, even though he couldn’t set a European Championship scoring record.
He had a new partner in attack by that point, with John Guidetti having replaced Marcus Berg in a switch which proved pivotal as Sweden dug out the equaliser.
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“We have two very, very tough matches coming against two sides that are very classy”, said O’Neill.
