Stephen Kenny believes that an away win in Athens can kick-start Ireland's quest to qualify for next year’s European Championships in Germany.
Ireland are currently in Turkey completing a warm-weather training camp ahead of Friday’s away game against Greece, where they are hoping to secure their first points of the qualifying campaign.
Kenny’s side narrowly lost their group opener against France at the Aviva Stadium in March and have seven more games to complete before the end of the year, in an attempt to finish in the top two, which would earn automatic qualification for Euro 2024.
But while Greece is the current focus, Ireland’s main threat for that second spot looks set to come from the much-fancied Netherlands, who despite an early loss to France, began the campaign as the group’s top seed.
A double-header against the Dutch later this year should determine their destiny, however Kenny’s charges need to win in Greece to offer themselves an opportunity to challenge.
And the manager believes that his team can record a vital win in Athens next week, before coming back to Dublin to play Gibraltar three days later.
"What we have asked the players for is a historic away victory," said Kenny, speaking to RTÉ football correspondent Tony O'Donoghue in Turkey.
"When you look at the history of the Irish teams in the years that they qualified and the away wins they had, they haven’t been against the major nations.
"There was important wins in Malta, Albania, Cyprus, Georgia and Armenia; they were the big away wins when teams have qualified, and Greece would be right up there."
The manager urged caution, however, and expects a very tough test against a Greece side who are on the up and impressed in the latest edition of the Nations League, where they topped their group, winning five of their six games, including all three home fixtures.
As a result, the opponents have already secured a place in next year’s Euro 2024 play-off programme, and Kenny feels that it will allow Gus Poyet’s side to play without pressure against Ireland.
"Greece have a formidable home record, they are doing really well and have had a good run of form," said Kenny.
Kenny is expecting both sides to look to dominate possession in the game, and while the manager spent his first two years in the job instilling such a concept, he now believes that it has become the country’s default style.
"We like to dominate possession as well," said Kenny. "People said we couldn’t play through the thirds, but now people expect us to play that way.
"Two years ago they said, 'defenders can’t play out from the back, we don’t have the players, he’s asking the players to do something they can’t do, it’s not in our DNA, it’s not in our culture’, stuff we were being bombarded with.
"And now, all of a sudden, it is second nature, the players are comfortable playing out. The two goals against Latvia, 26 passes, 20 passes, and that’s part of our identity now.
"But now with a really, really tough game in Greece, we need to come out the right side of that."
So while the philosophy test has been completed, another is pending as the team will look to learn from the lesson of last year in Yerevan, where they were beaten in the opening game of the summer international window by Armenia.
There has been an extended build-up to this crunch Greece game as the players started with a training camp in Bristol, before following personal plans for a week ahead of the nine-day trip to Turkey for warm-weather camp.
Since arriving at the resort in Antalya, the intensity has been raised a few notches with the manager revealing that he had to create a match-day situation to get the players ready.
"We have to navigate that challenge for players not being active for six weeks and getting ready again and also the change of climate and the change of environment," said Kenny.
"Athens in June, it is what it is. It is a hot country. and you have to make sure you are ready to maximise your performance level. That’s what we want, we want to have a big performance with no stone unturned in our desire to achieve that.
"We did play a full game, full kit, referees, linesmen, because that is what you have to do.
"You don’t want to go six weeks without playing a match, for the players, we wanted to have that level of intensity in the heat to get the players accustomed to that, so that was the idea behind training here and we want to make sure we are ready.
"We are fixated on Greece. "We have known for a while that we are here. We are preparing and we are acclimatised.
"We are trying to get ourselves ready because they have nothing to lose and they’ll come out of the blocks and will be looking to win the game.
"It was essential that our preparations were absolutely right."
Meanwhile, the manager said that he is happy to maintain his focus on the football for the upcoming double header and allow Tom Cannon time to reflect on where his international allegiances lie.
"I'm delighted with the squad we have here," said Kenny. "He just needs a period of reflection and we’ll see how that goes."
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Watch Greece v Republic of Ireland in the Euro 2024 qualifier on Friday night from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live radio commentary with Game On on 2fm
