‘You would expect a low scoring game’ – Heimir Hallgrimsson expects tense play-off between Ireland and Bulgaria
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Ireland boss Heimir Hallgrimsson expects a tight battle – with not many goals – in the Nations League promotion/relegation playoff against Bulgaria in March.
And he has revealed his relief in avoiding a tricky draw with Slovakia as Ireland also swerved a possible clash with Kosovo or Armenia to instead get another pairing with Bulgaria.
The last four competitive games between the two nations have all ended in draws and Bulgaria also showed how they deal with opposition from the island of Ireland as they had a 1-0 home win as well as a 5-0 hammering away in games against Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland side in the Nations League group phase.
Ireland will be away for the first leg on Thursday, March 20, with the second leg in Dublin on Sunday, March 23, as Bulgaria have yet to confirm the venue for their home tie, with no guarantee that it will be in Sofia and manager Hallgrimsson is pleased to be away for the first leg.
“I think it’s always an advantage in this,” he said this morning after the playoff draw at UEFA HQ in Switzerland.
“The travelling, just new locations etc, it’s good to have a home advantage. It’s a tricky place to go to, Bulgaria. The thing is, if you look at their results, it’s a lot of low-scoring games. Clean sheets is their strength. That is going to be a tricky thing, to break them down for sure.
“So the number of players is probably according to what I expected in the beginning. Obviously always it’s better to do a bigger camp with the players at the beginning and select from there but this was how it was. I think we used it wisely.
“We didn’t do a lot of changes but there was always some changes so there is a little stability as well. This is how we go forward. My contact time with the players is three weeks, three weeks and two days or something, so it’s not much. As a coach what you can do in three weeks. It’s good it was September, October, November. It was a continuity in what we were saying and our message was pretty clear in my opinion and the players now know what we expect, and they probably know more why we select in the future these players but not these players.
