Monday, December 23, 2024

‘You would expect a low scoring game’ – Heimir Hallgrimsson expects tense play-off between Ireland and Bulgaria

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And he has revealed his relief in avoiding a tricky draw with Slovakia as Ireland also swerved a possible clash with Kosovo or Armenia to instead get another pairing with Bulgaria.

The last four competitive games between the two nations have all ended in draws and Bulgaria also showed how they deal with opposition from the island of Ireland as they had a 1-0 home win as well as a 5-0 hammering away in games against Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland side in the Nations League group phase.

Ireland will be away for the first leg on Thursday, March 20, with the second leg in Dublin on Sunday, March 23, as Bulgaria have yet to confirm the venue for their home tie, with no guarantee that it will be in Sofia and manager Hallgrimsson is pleased to be away for the first leg.

“I think it’s always an advantage in this,” he said this morning after the playoff draw at UEFA HQ in Switzerland.

“The travelling, just new locations etc, it’s good to have a home advantage. It’s a tricky place to go to, Bulgaria. The thing is, if you look at their results, it’s a lot of low-scoring games. Clean sheets is their strength. That is going to be a tricky thing, to break them down for sure.

“I think Bulgaria is an okay draw. It’s not my favourite, it’s not the worst. Slovakia was the highest FIFA-ranked team and everyone would like to avoid them. Yeah it’s probably going to be an equal game like most of these set-ups.

“They were in a group with Northern Ireland and if I remember correctly they lost in Belfast but that is kind of an outlier in all the results. They had four clean sheets in that group and somebody had told me Ireland had them in the group in 2020 and it was two draws. You would expect a low scoring game when you look at the goals and statistics.”

Despite a dismal all-time record in the Nations League Ireland have never been relegated from League B and it has been argued that dropping into League C would afford the chance to clock up wins against lesser nations but he’s opposed to that.

“Well it’s different opinions as to how important it is to be in League B, some say it’s even better to be in Group C to have more chances of winning games. My opinion is that you should always play the stronger team and try to improve that way. That’s my opinion and I think it’s important that if we want to try to qualify for finals it’s always better to play better teams than not,” he said.

He also expressed a hope that the Ireland squad which finished the international year on the low of a 5-0 defeat in Wembley will be in better shape in March.

“If I look at the second half against England as an outlier, I think we have taken good steps. I always needed to see players and I only see them to get them know them as persons. I needed contact time with the group, with the squad, to try to find the players who will fit how we want things to be done,” he said.

“So the number of players is probably according to what I expected in the beginning. Obviously always it’s better to do a bigger camp with the players at the beginning and select from there but this was how it was. I think we used it wisely.

“We didn’t do a lot of changes but there was always some changes so there is a little stability as well. This is how we go forward. My contact time with the players is three weeks, three weeks and two days or something, so it’s not much. As a coach what you can do in three weeks. It’s good it was September, October, November. It was a continuity in what we were saying and our message was pretty clear in my opinion and the players now know what we expect, and they probably know more why we select in the future these players but not these players.

“If you look at our games this season, the second half is an outlier in our performance so hopefully time will heal these wounds. Now, it’s a little bit of a quieter time for me and a good time to look back and reflect and just gather every key not that I’ve put in my diary and go through it and gather my thoughts,” he added, keen for players who lack game time at club level to seek a loan move.

“If it’s a player that’s not playing, I think he will do that regardless of what his national team coach has to say. All players like to play and if they are not getting minutes, they will try with their agents to get playing time somewhere else. Of course as a national team coach, you want your players to be playing regularly and at the highest level possible.”

Meanwhile, Bulgaria have stated their disappointment at being paired with the Republic of Ireland in the draw for the Nations League promotion/relegation play-off as Heimir Hallgrimsson’s team were one of the sides they wanted to avoid.

Bulgaria will once again do battle with a team from the island of Ireland, memories still fresh of a 5-0 drubbing by Northern Ireland in Belfast only last month in the Nations League.

“The Irish are a tough opponent, they weren’t my favourite opponent. They have a style similar to that of Northern Ireland,” manager Ilian Iliev said after today’s draw.

“The important thing is that our players are fit in March. It’s also important that we learned from the Northern Ireland game in Belfast.”

The Bulgarian FA’s Technical Director Kiril Kotev said: “Ireland are a team that practices a style of play similar to that of Northern Ireland. We have enough time to prepare for the upcoming two matches and show a better side.”

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