da spicy bet：
da dobrowin： So, this is it.The final games of the Euro 2016 group stages. The competition started off with 24 teams. Only eight will play no further part. Will the Republic of Ireland be one of them? Or will they join Northern Ireland, Wales and England in the last 16?Standing in their way is Italy. So, easier said than done.Yet Ireland v Italy represents one of the highlights of Irish footballing history. It was at Giants Stadium in New York, the group stages of the 1994; the Irish were given no chance, and yet they would beat Italy and qualify for the second round of the tournament.A goal from Ray Houghton – a man whose greatest ever goal, the defining moment of a career is blighted forever more by the inevitable question ‘was it a mishit?’
Fast forward 22 years and another Irish team has the chance to beat Italy and write another chapter in Irish footballing history. To become yet another Irish team that turn up at a major tournament, to create yet another iconic moment against an iconic opponent.
As Martin O’Neill said at his press conference this week, however, this Irish team has an even more recent memories of Goliath-killings to give sustenance to their imagination. Shane Long’s goal against Germany not even one year ago should serve as ample inspiration.
But there are even more substantial, more concrete reasons that this Irish side could cause an upset tonight. The pitch at the Stade Pierre Mauroy in Lille is the kind of greenery Jack Charlton would have embraced, less so the more traditionally classy sides of Europe.
Ironically, the uneven playing field may just level the playing field. So too may Italy’s current status in this competition, and how no result tonight will change it. Italy will be Group E winners win, lose or draw. And they’ll play Spain in the next round – you can see why Antonio Conte would want to rest up to seven players for this game.
Players like Gianluigi Buffon, Daniele de Rossi and Giorgio Chiellini are all only one yellow card away from a ban, and unlikely to feature in a dead rubber. Just another leveller for the Irish in this game.
It’s unlikely, though, that a man like Antonio Conte, who has such a fire and brimstone approach to football management, will allow his team to simply canter to a defeat to the Republic of Ireland.
Nor have Ireland’s performances over the last two games have set the world alight. They don’t point to an upset tonight. They played reasonably well against Sweden, but collapsed after Wes Hoolahan scored Ireland’s goal. They were then outclassed obviously and thoroughly against Belgium, even if they could well have been awarded a penalty when the score was still 0-0.
In the end, Ireland had to open up and commit players in attack whilst facing three of the best counter attacking forwards in the Premier League in Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard and Romelu Lukaku.
That makes Martin O’Neill’s team selection much more difficult. This team does not pick itself. Jon Walters, probably Ireland’s best player, will be missing. Ciaran Clark has had a Euros to forget, not so much for the own goal against Sweden, but for his indiscipline against Belgium. And James McCarthy has been anonymous in the midfield, failing to track runners and unwilling to take responsibility in the midfield.
Ireland may even be deprived of their best creative player, Wes Hoolahan – possibly for tactical reasons, possibly for fitness reasons; at 34, Hoolahan’s ability to play three games in just over a week has been called into question. It would be a blow to a team who simply have to win.
There are levellers in this game, and it may just be that Ireland have caught Italy at the right time. There are reasons for Irish fans to believe that they are attending tonight’s game in Lille for more than the ‘singsong’. Is it Ireland’s lucky night?
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