“Georgia has great players and we will have a difficult game with this team” – this is the opinion of Martin O’Neill, head coach of Ireland national team, before the match.
Today, the Georgian national team will held the second meeting of 2018 World Championship qualifying round at “Aviva Stadium” in Dublin and let us hope that they do not return home without a point.
The last 10 meetings
Ireland team won 3, lost 3 and played 4 draws from the last 10 matches. The team of Martin O’Neill scored 1.4 goals and missed 1.3 on an average in the mentioned meetings.
The Georgian national team has 6 failures, 2-2 win-draw in the same 10 matches. Vladimir Weiss’s team managed to score 1.2 goals and missed 1.9.
Bad past…
Ireland national team is well known for us – 7 matches and all failure. 6 official and 1 friendly match. In 2013, we lost 4:0 in Dublin. Giorgi Loria should remember this match badly, because he received a red card at the 19th minute.
As for the official matches: for the first time, our paths crossed in Euro 2014 qualifying: on March 29, 2013, “Mikheil Meskhi” stadium, the guests scored twice. In June 2013, Dublin, the host team defeated us 2:0.
Then was the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying stage: September 6, 2008 we still do nothing against Celts in Mainz.
In Dublin, we have created more problems to opponent: with Aleksandre Iashvili’s goal, scored in the first minutes, we were winning for a long time, however, the referee stepped in and invented penalty at the 72th minute which was performed exactly by Robbie Keane. In the remaining time the “Crusades” broke down and Keane scored his second goal in 5 minutes.
Finally, we remember the previous qualifying round also baldy against Ireland: in Tbilisi, we responded to Aiden McGeady’s goal with Tornike Okriashvili’s beautiful goal and in Dublin, exactly one year ago, Kakha Tskhadadze’s team lost with minimal score. John Walters scored the only goal of the match in the 69th minute.
Hope...
Sometimes an uncomfortable opponent in football is really uncomfortable, but what if we can manage to make our opponent worry for the eighth try. Let us wait, the match will start at 22:45 Tbilisi time and Tony Chapron of France will be the referee. The first public TV channel plans the live broadcast.
The possible compositions
Georgia (4-2-3-1): Loria; Kakabadze, Kashia, Kvirkvelia, Navalovski; Daushvili, Gvilia; Kazaishvili, Ananidze, Okriashvili; Mchedlidze
Shortage: Jaba Kankava, Giorgi Anurjania, Nika Kvekveskiri, Levan Kenia, Ucha Lobzhanidze, Davit Khocholava.
Ireland (4-3-3): Randolph; Coleman, Keogh, O’Shea, Ward; Whelan, Hendrick, Brady; McClean, Long, Walters
Shortage: Darron Gibson, James McCartney, Stephen Quinn, Aiden McGeady, Kevin Doyle, Keiren Westwood, Andrew Pilkington
Referee: Tony Chapron (France)
