The Republic of Ireland will be hoping to make it two wins from two in their Euro 2021 qualifying campaign when they welcome Ukraine to Tallaght Stadium this evening.
VENUE
Tuesday 8 October, Tallaght Stadium, 7:30pm
ONLINE
Live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News Now App from 7 this evening
TV
Live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
WEATHER
Tonight will be mostly dry with clear spells. There will be a few isolated showers. Still quite breezy with moderate to fresh southwest winds. Lowest temperatures of 8 to 9 degrees
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Newly appointed Republic of Ireland manager Vera Pauw on her footballing philosophy, what she's going to bring to the role and how she expects to unpick Ukraine in Tallaght #rtesoccer pic.twitter.com/KgFh52qhr7
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) October 7, 2019
A chance to over Pauw-er Ukraine?
Already this qualifier has the feeling of a massive game for the Girls in Green.
Second seeds Ukraine are the visitors to Tallaght, but they travel to west Dublin off the back of two 8-0 defeats to runaway leaders Germany.
It presents Ireland with a great opportunity to kick the eastern Europeans when they're down, in front of a record crowd of 8,000 people. In doing so, they would take a big step towards a top-two finish in Group I.
Added to that is the fact that it's new manager Vera Pauw's first game in charge. The Dutch woman has no shortage of experience, having taken her native country to the semi-finals of Euro 2009. She was also at the helm with South Africa at the 2016 Olympics, and had a spell in club management with Houston Dash in the US.
She comes into a squad that showed improvement in the World Cup 2019 qualifying campaign, most noticeably drawing with defending European champions The Netherlands in Nijmegen.
Substance over style
That was the high water mark of that campaign under Colin Bell, as the they lost consecutive games to the Dutch, and Norway (twice) to see their qualification hopes go under.
This attempt to reach a first finals tournament started efficiently, if not necessarily spectacularly, in 2-0 win over bottom seeds Montenegro last month at Tallaght.
And Pauw admitted it was going to be a steep learning curve, in terms of getting to know the Irish players, when she announced her squad recently.
"I will meet Colin Bell... to go through the group dynamics and the specifics of players in order to ensure a smooth transition from his programme to what we are going to do," she said at the time.
What Pauw has come back with is that the team needs to play with some more purpose, as she told RTÉ Sport's Tony O'Donoghue at yesterday's pre-match press conference.
"It's all related to results. If we have a friendly tournament, then you can try out a few things, but it's just about getting a result."
Bell regularly referenced the fact that he wanted all Irish players plying their trade abroad, and specialised training sessions were organised for those still playing in the Women's National League.
This is a practice that Pauw has elected to continue for the three still based here; Claire Walsh (Peamount United), Chloe Mustaki (Shelbourne), and Rianna Jarrett (Wexford Youths).
In terms of the available talent, Megan Campbell's return is a definite boost, as she played recently with Manchester City in the Super League.
While captain Katie McCabe, who scored in the victory over Montenegro, has been impressing of late for both club and country.
"They're a tall, powerful team, with a lot of good players," according to the Tallaght-native.
"What we've touched on in training is how to stop their strengths, and how we can counteract that with our strengths when we go forward.
"We've worked out ways to do it, and we'll get out there and do everything we can to get the result."
Follow the Republic of Ireland v Ukraine this evening via our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the News Now app, or watch live and exclusive TV coverage on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player
