There wasn’t much point in analysing World Cup qualification chances until the latest series of matches had played out. Now, however, there’s a clarity to the situation following Italy’s impressive 2-0 win over Bulgaria in Turin.
Ireland could, of course, claim top spot in the group if they beat Italy and Montenegro at Croke Park next month and Italy fail to beat Cyprus on 14 October. But that’s not going to happen, is it?
Italy will clinch qualification as Group Eight winners with the draw they require at Croke Park and that result should be enough to see Ireland safely into second place. Mystic Meg, eat your heart out!
Ireland could even afford the luxury of being able to drop points against the Montenegrans and still go through. Bulgaria have to travel to Cyprus and then host Georgia in Sofia four days later and nothing but maximum points will suffice for Berbatov and company.
So don’t you think a little ‘entente cordiale’ or whatever the Italian equivalent is may be in evidence in Croker? I’m not suggesting for a moment that Senor Lippi and Senor Trapattoni will collude in some match-fix, but the shrewd Italians know that caution will be its own reward for both sides.
And will second place be enough? Yes!
It was a worry that Montenegro were edging clear of Georgia at the bottom of our group when you take the rather convoluted qualification procedures into account.
Basically there are nine groups in the Europe zone. The nine group winners qualify automatically and so already we have the Netherlands and England definitely through. The eight best second placed teams will play home and away play-off matches for the remaining four places. One second placed team misses out. Nightmare!
Because there are only five countries in Group Nine the results of your games against the bottom team in your group are discounted to give a proper comparative position. At the moment, Georgia are bottom of Ireland’s group and we have beaten them home and (sort of) away. That means six points would come off our total leaving us currently with ten, the same as Norway in Group Nine who have played all their games.
In other words, even if Georgia finish below Montenegro (and they must play each other again) another point for Ireland from two remaining games will be enough to get us into the draw for the two-legged play-offs on 14 and 18 November.
We will revisit our play-off record once that becomes the reality, but although that particular route has brought heartache in the past we might do well to remember that our last qualification for the World Cup finals was a successful journey through the play-offs and an aggregate win over Iran.
As you would expect, Italy are beginning to motor now. It was interesting that Lippi mentioned that it was a bad time of the year for the Italians' 'condition' because their season starts later than others. They looked pretty good all the same at the Stadio delle Alpi in Turin.
The Azzurri are World champions, of course, and that particular fact seems to have been overlooked by many in the analysis of the current Italian team and the group.
So far the football hasn’t been classic and the squad are, shall we say, on the mature side - but they have done enough when they have had to, to make it to within touching distance of the finishing line. Even without captain Cannovaro in Dublin they’ll surely win the group.
Their ‘condition’ will be better again next month and remember qualification for the likes of Italy is only the first lap of a long race. They, rightly, expect to progress beyond the group stages, the last 16, the quarters and semi-finals. We would be quite happy to make it to South Africa and ‘give it a lash’ from there.
Maybe our luck would hold and we would once again make it out of our group. A word of warning though; it will not be pretty.
The victory over South Africa was welcome, for sure, but we played about as well as we had against Australia at the same venue and went away from that one on the back of a 3-0 reverse.
The way players like Liam Lawrence, Leon Best and Darren O’Dea got an opportunity to play their way into the manager’s plans is to be welcomed, but the inability of our midfield to again make any creative impression is worrying.
Still, one thing we know for certain, Trapattoni isn’t going to change now. Clarity.
TONY O’DONOGHUE IS RTE’S SOCCER CORRESPONDENT.
The Inside Track with Tony O’Donoghue
