1) A chance for Murphy?
With
Shane Long failing to recover from an ankle injury, it could be a big
night for Daryl Murphy against Bosnia-Herzegovina. After his goal
against Germany last month, Long is being saved for the second leg in
Dublin and the indications are that Martin O’Neill will select Murphy up
front in Zelina instead of Robbie Keane, who often struggles to last
the pace these days. Murphy’s physique will make it easier for him to
hold the ball up. Yet he has struggled for goals this season. The
32-year-old rattled in 27 for Ipswich last season, but his first goals
of this campaign did not arrive until last Saturday’s 5-2 over
Rotherham. Mind you, he did score a hat-trick. JS
2) Revenge in the air for Ukraine
Play-offs
are a spicy business at the best of times but Ukraine v Slovenia comes
with it a 16-year-old grudge, a generation of revenge simmering just
beneath the surface. For these two teams also met each other in a
play-off to reach Euro 2000, in the days when Ukraine had Andriy
Shevchenko and Sergei Rebrov up front and were thus strong favourites
but were shocked by an opportunistic Slovenia side who pulled themselves
back from the brink in both legs. The second game was played in faintly
absurd conditions, a combination of the snow in Kiev and a white ball
making actually figuring out what was happening on the pitch tricky, to
say the least.
3) Sweden’s other players must step up
Last
week Zlatan Ibrahimovic won the Swedish player of the year award for
the ninth straight year. The last player to win it other than him was
Freddie Ljungberg. Seven of Sweden’s last 11 goals were scored by
Ibrahimovic. In the last two years they’ve only won one competitive game
in which Ibrahimovic didn’t score, and that was against Lichtenstein.
It’s not a particularly outlandish conclusion to reach that the Swedes
are overly reliant on football’s second biggest ego, with little threat
coming from elsewhere. Indeed, when your next two most potent players
are John Guidetti and Ola Toivonen, it’s a fairly troubling state of
affairs, and makes planning to face Sweden relatively simple: stop
Zlatan, and you’ll probably be OK. It’s easier said than done, but his
lack of goals and four relatively anonymous performances in the
Champions League for PSG this season show it’s perfectly possible. The
good news is that the Swedes have a good collection of youngsters, fresh
from winning the European Under-21 championships in the summer, but
that won’t do them too much good against the old enemy Denmark in the
play-offs. “Denmark are 10 places above us in the world rankings and
they have won the most recent matches between us, but my feeling is that
this is our time now,” said Sweden coach Erik Hamren this week. Well,
as long as he has a good feeling … NM
4) It may not be a thriller in Oslo
The
last time Norway and Hungary met was seven years ago, and the former
overcame the latter by an aggregate score of 8-1, although if you were
hoping for a similarly high-scoring affair then you may well be
disappointed. These two teams managed 24 goals in 20 matches between
them in the groups, and are both in this game after stuffing things up
rather in the previous stage: Hungary won just one of their last four
qualifiers, while a final game defeat in Italy allowed Croatia to sneak
in ahead of the Norwegians. So, in short, if you’ve got errands to run
but are concerned about missing some rip-roaring football, then Thursday
night, when the first leg of this one takes place in Oslo, might be the
best time to get a few things done. NM
5) Rooney or Vardy?
The
numbers look clearcut. Jamie Vardy has already scored 12 league goals
this season and if he finds a way past Newcastle United’s Rob Elliot on
Saturday week, the Leicester City striker will equal Ruud van
Nistelrooy’s record of scoring in 10 consecutive Premier League games.
Wayne Rooney, by contrast, is in a rut. Overtaking Sir Bobby Charlton as
England’s top goalscorer last month has not lessened fears that Rooney
is in decline given that he has scored two goals in his past nine
matches for Manchester United. Overall Rooney has scored nine goals in
20 matches for club and country this season and his tally includes a
goal in England’s 6-0 win over San Marino, a hat-trick in United’s
Champions League qualifier against FC Bruges and the opener in the
Capital One Cup victory over Ipswich Town, who lie 10th in the
Championship.
6) A chance for Leroy Sané?
Joachim
Löw showed when he announced the squad for Germany’s friendly against
France that he very much subscribes to the theory that if a player is
good enough, he’s old enough. And, indeed, that he’s young enough. Löw
dipped into both ends of the age scale to select his squad, recalling
Mario Gómez for the first time since the World Cup, but more
interestingly also picking Schalke’s dazzling 19-year-old winger Leroy
Sané, who already has four goals from seven league starts this season.
“We’ve already got to know him in our youth national teams and he is one
of the positive emergences of the current season,” said Löw. “He’s
quick, technically strong and likes going one-on-one, while he has no
hang-ups. We see his enormous potential.” Sané could get a chance to
make his international debut, before offering a reminder of his youth by
joining the under-21 squad for their qualifier against Austria. Just
when the rest of the world could see the light at the end of the tunnel,
another young talent emerges from Germany. NM
7) A role reversal in Wales
The
last time Wales played Holland, the Dutch used it as a warm-up for the
2014 World Cup and they won 2-0 thanks to goals from Arjen Robben and
Jeremain Lens. It was the same story during the build-up to Euro 2008,
Holland hosting Wales in a pre-tournament friendly and winning 2-0,
Robben and Wesley Sneijder scoring either side of half-time. Yet now the
shoe is on the other foot. Wales’ first warm-up match for Euro 2016
sees them host Holland in Cardiff on Friday night, a month after Danny
Blind’s side suffered their dramatic fall from grace. Now Holland are
reduced to playing second fiddle against the Welsh. Who could have seen
that coming when Louis van Gaal led them to third place at the World
Cup? Wales could enjoy themselves against a wounded Dutch side and it
should be a good test for them as they begin their preparations for
their first appearance at a major tournament since 1958. JS
8) A must-win for Argentina?
These
are early days in the South American World Cup qualifiers with just two
rounds of games played, but neither Brazil nor Argentina have had
particularly convincing starts. Brazil recovered from an opening defeat
to Chile by beating Venezuela, while Argentina lost at home to Ecuador
and drew 0-0 with Paraguay. The two giants and old rivals face each
other in Buenos Aires on Thursday, and to say the hosts have a tricky
task on their hands is quite an understatement. Not only do they have to
face Neymar in perhaps the form of his life, but do so without the
injured trio of Sergio Agüero, Carlos Tevez and Lionel Messi; even if
those three have struggled to replicate their club form for the national
side, being without all of them for such a big game is an almost
impossible handicap.
While they have a
back-up cast of forwards (Gonzalo Higuaín, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Paulo
Dybala and Ángel Correa) that most countries would be very satisfied
with as their first choices, without his three most potent attackers
coach Gerardo Martino might think to play things safe, even in a home
game. The trouble is that a draw, depending on other results, could
leave them second-bottom of the table after three games, a position from
which qualification would be extremely difficult. The only time
Argentina haven’t made it to the World Cup was in 1970, when the team
was in a period of flux and teams only played four games to qualify.
Even this early in the campaign, this game looks like a must-win for
Martino’s men. NM
9) Japan looking to avoid another slip-up
Interesting times in the Asian qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup. In Group E, Japan were expected to gently sashay off with the honours, facing Syria, Singapore, Afghanistan and Cambodia, giants of international football none of them. However, four matches in and Japan find themselves second behind the Syrians, having suffered a surprise draw against Singapore in their first game. It’s the return fixture on Thursday, and a win is required to set them back on the right track, particularly because only the group winners are guaranteed to go through to the next round of the Asian confederation’s slightly complicated qualification process. Things have improved under Vahid Halilhodzic, appointed after previous coach Javier Aguirre was sacked following his involvement in a match-fixing investigation, but the Bosnian can be a slightly combustible character. He resigned from the Algeria job last year after taking them to the knockout stages of the World Cup for their first time in their history, and did so with something of a bang, vowing he would “never forget or forgive” his treatment by the Algerian press. NM
10) Friendlies? Perhaps not
The
big boys aren’t messing around with their friendlies these days.
Perhaps on the perfectly sensible theory that if you’re going to play a
game that basically means nothing, you might as well make it as
challenging as possible for it to be any use, the pre-European
Championship round of warm-up games look like they could be corkers. By
international friendly standards, of course. England follow up their
trip to Spain by hosting France, who themselves of course will have
already played Germany by then, while the Germans will renew the old
rivalry with the Dutch, still spicy despite the rather sorry state of
Danny Blind’s team. Plus Belgium, according to the Fifa rankings the
best team in the world, begin their limbering up for next summer by
facing Spain and Italy. It seems the days of gently playing yourself
into a tournament, enjoying glorified training sessions by sticking six
past a selection of no-marks, are over, and all the better for it. NM