INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLY
Malta v Republic of Ireland, Sunday 20 November, Ta'Qali National Stadium, 7pm
TV
Watch live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player from 6.30pm after coverage of the opening 2022 World Cup fixture between Qatar and Ecuador.
ONLINE
Live tracker on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Updates and match highlights on RTÉ Soccer Twitter and RTÉ Sport Facebook.
WEATHER
There will be highs of 17 degrees Celsius in Malta, with winds becoming strong; variably cloudy and cooler with a couple of showers and a thunderstorm.
A MUST-WIN IN MALTA
If the Euro 2024 qualifying draw was meant to provide solace after a decidedly mixed UEFA Nations League campaign, those hopes were dashed when Stephen Kenny's charges were dropped into a group featuring heavyweights France and the Netherlands.
Those fixtures, as well as games against Greece and Gibraltar, are all to come next year.
And to prepare for it, friendlies against Norway and Malta were arranged for this month. The Norwegians have already been to the Aviva Stadium and came away with a 2-1 win without star striker Erling Haaland on Thursday which leaves Ireland heading to Malta in search of a morale boost before the daunting visit of the French to Dublin on 27 March 2023.
This time last year, Ireland made sure there would be optimism going into 2022 when they held Portugal to a draw and then exacted revenge in Luxembourg with a 3-0 win.
While the jury is out on how much that has been built on amid highs such as beating Scotland 3-0 and the lows of a loss in Armenia, a victory over perennial minnows Malta is a must for Kenny and his team.
Sunday's opponents may be ranked 168th in the world but their recent form against teams of similar standing to themselves this year have actually been pretty good...
OPPOSITION WATCH
Speaking of which, Malta, who are under caretaker Gilbert Agius' management for this game on Sunday, have won five of their nine games this year and also held Ireland's Euro 2024 qualifying group rivals Greece to a 2-2 home draw in a friendly on Thursday.
The wins have been against Azerbaijan, Kuwait, San Marino (twice) and Israel - not exactly big hitters in a global context but victories nonetheless.
Their record at the Ta'Qali National Stadium in that nine-game span reads four wins from seven but only the 1-0 victory over San Marino on 12 June was in a competitive game, down in UEFA Nations League D. Their only other home game in that group saw them lose 2-1 to Estonia three days before that.
Tactically, they are likely to line-up with a back-three as they did in Thursday's draw against the Greeks, with most of their recent games featuring a variation of the 3-4-3 which bears only a slight similarity to Ireland's 3-5-2.
HISTORY CORNER
As RTÉ Sport's Dave Kelly has highlighted, the Ta'Qali National Stadium holds a special place in Irish football history.
While Jack's Army were already on the brink of qualification prior to kick-off on 15 November 1989 - only a defeat in Malta on the day along with a big Hungarian win in Spain could scupper things - it was where they made sure of their place at Italia 90 - and we need no reminders about what happened at the tournament proper.
A 2-0 win over the Maltese courtesy of a John Aldridge brace, coupled with Spain thrashing Hungary 4-0 in Seville, mathematically guaranteed the Boys in Green's passage to their first ever World Cup.
Almost six years to the day earlier, Malta were the opponents for one of Ireland's more welcome records: The biggest winning margin in Boys of Green history.
On 16 November 1983, Eoin Hand's team thrashed Malta 8-0 in a Euro 84 qualifier at Dalymount Park.
Liam Brady and Mark Lawrenson both scored braces on the day, while Frank Stapleton, Kevin O'Callaghan (of Escape To Victory fame as the Allied Goalkeeper in Pele and Sylvester Stallone's team), Kevin Sheedy and Gerry Daly helped themselves to the other goals. The closest Ireland have since come to matching that winning margin was back in 2014 when Martin O'Neill's team hammered Gibraltar 7-0 at the Aviva Stadium.
In all, Ireland have played Malta seven times, winning on each occasion, with the most recent of those a 3-2 away win during the Euro 2000 qualifiers.
Watch Malta v the Republic of Ireland live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player on Sunday from 6.30pm and follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app
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