Ireland need only a goalless draw in the return leg in Dublin to reach next year’s tournament in France, but Bazdarevic was confident Bosnia still had a good chance of progressing.
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Ray Houghton has called on the Republic of Ireland to be positive and try to beat Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday night, rather than play for the 0-0 draw that would secure victory in the Euro 2016 play-off.
“I’m Irish through and through so I was rooting them on, wanting to do well and it was disappointing”, he said. We stuck at it. We stick in there and we’re happy with the result.
Asked if he needed to remind O’Neill of his potency, the Los Angeles Galaxy striker said with a smile: “I don’t think I need to do that”.
“Make no mistake about it, the games will be hard, but you wouldn’t be expecting any sort of walkover in play-off games”, said O’Neill, who must do without the suspended Jonathan Walters and John O’Shea and injured goalkeeper Shay Given.
“He is very modest but it was a great boost for us to get that goal and it keeps us alive and keeps us going”.
“I would have taken 1-1 before, the away goal helps, but it can be wiped out in any given minute”.
In preparation for Ireland’s trip to Bosnia, I stumbled across a fantastic title on Back Page Football thanks to one of the site’s many columnists Garry Bacon.
“I’ll put them in on merit and hopefully the experience that they have garnered over the last 10 or 15 years could stand us in a bit of decent stead”.
“My pride in the side has been there from the start. I am still an optimist and I always am and I think we may, if we play better and have a better attitude, we can have a better game in the second leg”.
Edin Dezko, Bosnia’s only goalscorer on Friday night, and Miralem Pjanic are both star players for their country but neither provided brilliance that was expected.
“If we think that we can keep them out for 90 minutes and camp ourselves just outside our own penalty area, that would be a recipe for disaster”.
“It was a tough game for us, really tough, but we fought very, very strongly in the game and we are still in the tie, so there’s very much everything to play for”.
Rob Keane, Republic of Ireland manager O’Neill’s assistant, yesterday had a swipe at club managers who declared players unfit for worldwide in a Press conference. “We’ll try to use that to our advantage”.
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“The ultimate goal doesn’t change – trying to get to France”.
