HAVING decided against travelling to watch Ireland’s Euro 2012 rivals in the flesh for himself, Giovanni Trapattoni will instead settle down in front of the telly and crank up the video recorder this afternoon as Slovakia take on New Zealand in Rustenburg.
Slovakian coach, Vladimir Weiss, with uncanny prescience, declared there was “no top favourite,” in his side’s group, a view Trapattoni’s countrymen, the defending champions, could no longer take issue with after last night’s travails against Paraguay. Clearly it is no group of death and a win over the “All Whites,” would give the Slovakians a decent shot at making it to the second round of this, their first World Cup finals.
The Italians had been expected to progress as group winners and Weiss’s team’s form in getting this far suggested they had precisely the pedigree to beat off the challenge of the Kiwis and Paraguayans. After last night it may all be to play for.
Slovakia topped their qualification group by two points from Slovenia. Wins both home and away over Poland as well as one over neighbours, the Czech Republic in Prague, set them on course for top spot and there were plenty of goals along the way. But they conceded an average of one a game too, which is a concern ahead of their opener here.
The coach has a couple of big names around whom to build things and the core of the squad play at a high level, mainly across central Europe but there are some significant questions about how some of the less proven players will cope, particularly young Chelsea winger Miroslav Stoch ( a doubt with a knee problem) and the manager’s son, Vlad junior.
“He is a very clever boy,” says the coach of his son, a pacey and highly promising 20-year-old midfielder who spent the tail end of last season on loan at Bolton from Manchester City, “but it is not easy for him because his coach is his father. And he is not an easy player to coach, but I am sure he will show an excellent performance and will help his team.”
“We are all full of expectation,” the manager added. “The atmosphere is very good. It is the peak of the careers of every coach and player and there is a nice tension. We will play with modesty but will be going for a win.”
New Zealand, naturally enough, see the game as one of their better chances to score a first win at the World Cup finals after the nation was rather badly mauled on their one and only previous appearance, back in 1982.
Manager Ricki Herbert was a member of that team and insists this one is better equipped to deal with the challenges that lie ahead over the next week and a half or so but he is desperately short on players with experience of life in anything like the big leagues.
Herbert is hoping Plymouth’s Rory Fallon and Chris Killen of Middlesbrough will deliver the goals required to deliver at least one victory but it all seems just a little far-fetched with only the unexpected friendly win over Serbia a couple of weeks back providing some evidence for the manager’s optimism.
Blackburn Rovers’ Ryan Nelsen is one of the better known members of a squad that includes one part-timer. “We are very competitive,” he said. “The reality of World Cup football is that you can play really well and lose all the games but we’re a very good team and we want to win. It’s as simple as that.”
- Emmet Malone
