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Irish Independent
Oct 9 2011
Losing this one would be ultimate humiliation
Ireland should have no reason to be wary of Armenia, writes Eamonn Sweeney
By Eamonn Sweeney
Sunday October 09 2011
Let's get it straight about Armenia. In their 4-1 win against
Macedonia on Friday night, our opponents on Tuesday featured five
players from their domestic league. The Armenian League is rated 50th
in Europe by UEFA, 17 places behind the League of Ireland.
Only the leagues of Andorra, the Faroe Islands and San Marino rank lower.
There are two players on the Armenian team from Khimki, which last
year finished 13th in the Russian First Division. This is not the top
flight, Russia has a Premier League. Ural Sverdlosk Oblast, Krasnodar
and Shinnik Yaroslavl, who contribute players to the team, also toil
on the second rung of Russian football. There are a couple of players
from Metalurh Donetsk, currently lying eighth in the Ukrainian Premier
League. Defender Levon Hayrapatyan plies his trade with mighty Lechia
Gdansk, currently tenth in the Polish Premier League.
The one player at a big club is Henrik Mrkhitaryan, a midfielder who's
made 26 appearances over the past couple of seasons for Shakhtar
Donetsk. In the qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup, Armenia
finished bottom of their group with four points from ten matches. When
the draw was made for Euro 2012, they were ranked 45th out of 53 teams
in Europe, between Iceland and Kazakhstan. In the last decade they
have gone through 11 managers.
This is the team then whose visit to the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday is
being greeted with so much trepidation.
Ireland need only a point to make the play-offs. Armenia need a win
because, incredibly, for the first time in the country's football
history they have come within an ass's roar of qualification.
And fair play to them for doing so. We know what it's like to be the
minnows and we'd have a good idea of the excitement gripping the folk
of Yerevan, Gyumri and Kapan as they catch a glimpse of uncharted
territory for the first time.
But the stark truth is that it says a lot about the piss-poor standard
of European Championship qualifying Group B that Armenia are still in
there with a shot on the last day. And it says even more about the
good fortune that Ireland have enjoyed that we merely need a draw
against them to qualify after a campaign which saw us take three
points out of a possible 12 against our perceived main rivals,
Slovakia and Russia.
Before the competition began, you'd have imagined that such a haul
would have doomed us to irrelevance. What you wouldn't have imagined
is that people would be worrying about our prospects of earning a draw
at home to Armenia, a 'gimme' if ever there was one under normal
circumstances.
If Ireland lose to the ancestral homeland of Cher, Charles Aznavour
and Kim Kardashian at the Aviva Stadium, it will be, given everything
that's at stake, the most humiliating defeat in the history of soccer
in this country. By some distance. Because more than half of the team
we'll be facing play their club football at a level which is roughly
equal to or lower than that of the League of Ireland.
Yet such is the pessimism surrounding Trapattoni's team that Armenia
are being touted as a serious challenge to an Irish side which appears
to have an addiction to making life hard for itself. Chances are,
however, that we will clamber over the obstacle which is Armenia and
make the play-offs where the argument over whether Trap is saviour or
stooge will finally be resolved one way or the other. If all goes
well, we could get Montenegro; if our luck finally runs out, it might
be Croatia.
But first we need a draw against Armenia. A draw against Armenia for
God's sake. You've heard of the Group of Death. Turns out we've been
playing in the Group of Life.
- Eamonn Sweeney
http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/losing-this-one-would-be-ultimate-humiliation-2900534.html
Oct 9 2011
Losing this one would be ultimate humiliation
Ireland should have no reason to be wary of Armenia, writes Eamonn Sweeney
By Eamonn Sweeney
Sunday October 09 2011
Let's get it straight about Armenia. In their 4-1 win against
Macedonia on Friday night, our opponents on Tuesday featured five
players from their domestic league. The Armenian League is rated 50th
in Europe by UEFA, 17 places behind the League of Ireland.
Only the leagues of Andorra, the Faroe Islands and San Marino rank lower.
There are two players on the Armenian team from Khimki, which last
year finished 13th in the Russian First Division. This is not the top
flight, Russia has a Premier League. Ural Sverdlosk Oblast, Krasnodar
and Shinnik Yaroslavl, who contribute players to the team, also toil
on the second rung of Russian football. There are a couple of players
from Metalurh Donetsk, currently lying eighth in the Ukrainian Premier
League. Defender Levon Hayrapatyan plies his trade with mighty Lechia
Gdansk, currently tenth in the Polish Premier League.
The one player at a big club is Henrik Mrkhitaryan, a midfielder who's
made 26 appearances over the past couple of seasons for Shakhtar
Donetsk. In the qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup, Armenia
finished bottom of their group with four points from ten matches. When
the draw was made for Euro 2012, they were ranked 45th out of 53 teams
in Europe, between Iceland and Kazakhstan. In the last decade they
have gone through 11 managers.
This is the team then whose visit to the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday is
being greeted with so much trepidation.
Ireland need only a point to make the play-offs. Armenia need a win
because, incredibly, for the first time in the country's football
history they have come within an ass's roar of qualification.
And fair play to them for doing so. We know what it's like to be the
minnows and we'd have a good idea of the excitement gripping the folk
of Yerevan, Gyumri and Kapan as they catch a glimpse of uncharted
territory for the first time.
But the stark truth is that it says a lot about the piss-poor standard
of European Championship qualifying Group B that Armenia are still in
there with a shot on the last day. And it says even more about the
good fortune that Ireland have enjoyed that we merely need a draw
against them to qualify after a campaign which saw us take three
points out of a possible 12 against our perceived main rivals,
Slovakia and Russia.
Before the competition began, you'd have imagined that such a haul
would have doomed us to irrelevance. What you wouldn't have imagined
is that people would be worrying about our prospects of earning a draw
at home to Armenia, a 'gimme' if ever there was one under normal
circumstances.
If Ireland lose to the ancestral homeland of Cher, Charles Aznavour
and Kim Kardashian at the Aviva Stadium, it will be, given everything
that's at stake, the most humiliating defeat in the history of soccer
in this country. By some distance. Because more than half of the team
we'll be facing play their club football at a level which is roughly
equal to or lower than that of the League of Ireland.
Yet such is the pessimism surrounding Trapattoni's team that Armenia
are being touted as a serious challenge to an Irish side which appears
to have an addiction to making life hard for itself. Chances are,
however, that we will clamber over the obstacle which is Armenia and
make the play-offs where the argument over whether Trap is saviour or
stooge will finally be resolved one way or the other. If all goes
well, we could get Montenegro; if our luck finally runs out, it might
be Croatia.
But first we need a draw against Armenia. A draw against Armenia for
God's sake. You've heard of the Group of Death. Turns out we've been
playing in the Group of Life.
- Eamonn Sweeney
http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/losing-this-one-would-be-ultimate-humiliation-2900534.html