Recruited at considerable expense, Ireland’s coaching duo struggled to fire up the side early on in qualification but Ireland became an increasingly hard opponents, epitomised in Monday’s 2-0 victory that secured a 3-1 win on aggregate.
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Bosnia’s Ognjen Vranjes, left, and Emir Spahic react after Ireland was awarded a penalty kick during the Euro 2016 play-off second leg soccer match between Ireland and Bosnia in Dublin, Monday, November 16, 2015.
But Bosnia attacked on the left all through the match – and it is a sad fact that when teams see us selecting Stephen Ward at left-back they invariably take on Ireland down that wing.
Shane Long scored the only goal of the game when these two countries met for the very first time in May 2012.
“Bosnia must have felt really down with the penalty, it was so tough on them”.
“The onus is on us now, we have to try and win as I feel Bosnia are capable of scoring a goal and therefore our mindset should be to try and win the game”, he said. But with the results comes confidence and a little bit more belief.
“It’s not just even these two games, it’s since we were sitting in fourth place”. Ciaran Clark and and Richard Keogh also had strong games.
“Mostly I’m delighted for the players, they have been absolutely fantastic, and if they hold in me in any sort of regard, it’s minuscule by comparison to the esteem I hold them in”. Who knows it might be the only one I ever get to.
The timing was ideal for Ireland. The crowd will get behind us and, if we can get the atmosphere we had against Germany, that would serve us greatly.”he ended”.
Bosnia were many peoples tip to win last time out on home turf, and will be angry that they failed achieve that, with a late Edin Dzeko goal all that prevented an embarrassing home loss.
“You can’t afford to sit back”.
“The FAI I am sure were asked questions about that and must have thought: ‘is it the right thing?’ But they went with it and Irish football is the victor because for Martin, his CV just goes on and it is brilliant for him”. “We didn’t put on the kind of performance we aimed to and Dzeko’s goal hauled us back into it”.
All being said, in simple terms it is Ireland who have the advantage as the sides face off in Dublin.
Taking Brady out of midfield would give O’Neill the chance to use a pair of fresh legs in the engine room and I think that is going to be important.
“It’s unbelievable”, he said. “I wouldn’t have seen this coming from last summer or at the start of the group, but I’m not complaining”.
“I was just concentrating at club level”.
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He said: “They raid down the right-hand side because they’ve got a very, very fine right winger”.
