Bosnia’s players and management will be anxiously looking at the Irish forecast for Monday night.
The 20th best team in the world were held to a 1-1 draw by Martin O’Neill’s side in last night’s Euro 2016 play-off, which gives us a brilliant chance to reach just our third ever European Championships.
According to various interviews on the sportsba website this afternoon, the Bosnia management and players are confident of still securing their passage to Euro 2016 next summer despite Robbie Brady’s crucial away goal.
Martin O’Neill was delighted with his team’s performance, while his Bosnia counterpart Mehmed Baždarević feels that his outfit will be better prepared to deal with Ireland in Dublin, once there is no fog of course,
“We have seen the game and we were very pleased with what we saw in the first half. We lacked a bit of luck to achieve a leading goal , which would have helped a lot.”
“Unfortunately, the second half I can not comment on because I could not see anything.”
“Certainly it was not what we expected , but the result remains open and I think we have the quality to play in Dublin as in the first half to get get a result. But we will need a lot more fighting spirit and heart.”
Centre-half Edin Cocalić expressed his frustration with how many long balls his side tried in the second half especially, but admitted that Ireland had not surprised him with their tactics,
“We knew that the Irish would play the long ball but we can play much better than we had yesterday. We’re too tried with long balls. However, it is not to our way of playing.”
“1-1 for us is a good result after going behind, but we still need to score and everything is still open. It is still very much 50-50.”
Fellow defender Ervin Zukanović has promised his side will improve “100%” from last night’s performance, and that the team will be much more focused in Dublin,
“We’re a little tired, but we go to Dublin and we’ll be hoping for a rest and to get ready for Monday night.”
“I’m sure we will play much better than in Zenica. We’ll analyse the game and I’m one hundred percent sure that we will play much much better in Dublin.”
Striker Milan Djuric was introduced as a second half substitute, and he is clear on what Bosnia have to do to book their place at next year’s Euro finals,
“Now we go to Ireland and the only result is a victory for us. I think we can play better . If we want to go to France, we need to show more than last night.”
We have been warned.
