Leon Best was out; then he was in; now he's out again; but he might be in on Tuesday, unless it's decided that he remains out. Leon Best, good at the ol' in-out, it appears.......
My guess at the team: Given Kelly-Dunne-StLedger-Ward Duff-Whelan-Andrews-McGeady Keane-Cox Although maybe Walters might get the nod over Cox.
So anyone want to make a prediction for the away leg since that is what we are anticipating? Will a negative result be overcomable in Dublin? I guess I will start by predicting 0-0. I guess I think that it has a good pontential to be a bannana skin.
Everyone trained this morning. The squad flew out to Tallinn this afternoon. As for a prediction, I think we will score. 1-1 would be a decent result to bring back to Dublin on Tuesday. 0-0 would make me extremely nervous, as Estonia are more than capable of getting a goal at the Aviva.
2-0 win for us Friday. Duff and Walters to score. Hopefully Andrews twists his ankle getting off the plane in Estonia...wishful thinking
Taking both days off work to watch the games. Got the flags out to match my Portuguese neighbors who are in a similar position. Jesus, if we can't get by Estonia to qualify we should bring back the "ban."
Slovenia and Serbia both had this line of thinking going on. But this is not your grandfather's Estonian squad we're talking about. Trapa is right to say that they cannot be underestimated.
Is this the same Estonia that got beat by the Faroe Islands in June ? Ireland will never get a better opportunity to get to a major finals.
No, I think that might have been, "if we can defend this corner, the final whistle will blow, we've beaten Macedonia and we've qualified for Euro 2000." Estonia may have lost to the Faroes, but they beat Serbia and Slovenia away from home and finished ahead of both of them in the group. They're far from world beaters and were the weakest team in the playoffs based on FIFA rankings, but they're going to be up for this too. And despite results, Trappatoni has Ireland playing in a fashion that contains teams, not whumping them 4-0. On paper Ireland has too much for them. On paper. Still, something of the order of 2-1, 3-1 on aggregate, would be about what's expected.
On the other hand, they failed to keep a clean sheet in any qualifying match. And the Faroes beat them...
True, true. But finishing ahead of Serbia and Slovenia is a decent showing. A good thing that Estonia have failed to keep a clean sheet as Ireland aren't exactly known for goal-scoring abandon.
That would be great as I could'nt see Estonia scoring 2 in Dublin especially with Trap as manager. A 1-1 draw would be OK as well.
I would be happy enough with a 1-1 draw. Think we really need to score tonight. 0-0 would be a disaster.