Cuper’s young Georgians won’t lack motivation
“It was possible to hold this game in Tbilisi,” said the Georgian coach when quizzed on the FAI’s ultimately successful request to have the game switched to a neutral venue because of the conflict with Russia.
“It would not have been a problem but everyone behaves like it is more uncomfortable at the minute. I really don’t know what they were thinking about or what they wanted to achieve but it was absolutely possible to play this game in Tbilisi.”
Yet, as he went on to say, there is no point crying over it now. The good news for Cuper is that, compared to last month’s friendly against Wales in Swansea, preparations have gone like clockwork.
There have been no perilous trips to Baku for players seeking visas this time. No stories of players arriving with only the clothes on their backs. Everyone is available, everyone is fit and the coach has 26 players to choose from tonight.
Irish fans will be familiar with defender Zurab Khizanishvili of Blackburn Rovers while Kakha Kaladze plays for AC Milan and is the most capped player. Almost half the squad is domestic-based.
Kaladze is only one of four players who are aged 30 or over in a squad where the balance is more in favour of youth. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the last line of defence.
Two of the panel’s four teenagers are goalkeepers. The third is 21. That trio have eight caps between them and Georgi Loria, who started against the Welsh, made an awful blunder for Jason Koumas’ opening goal.
Georgia have a reputation for being flaky away from Tbilisi, as evidenced by a 4-1 defeat in Windsor Park last March, but the 2-1 win in Swansea is perhaps a more accurate barometer of the danger they pose Ireland.
The 16 players who played that night did so wearing black armbands. The starting 11 linked arms before raising them aloft while the national anthem was played. They will not lack for motivation tonight.
Cuper is new to the job, having signed the contract just one week before the war with Russia began, but he is familiar with the man in the opposite dugout tonight.
Giovanni Trapattoni he has duelled with before, in Serie A and the Champions League, and he replaced Marco Tardelli as Inter Milan gaffer when the assistant Irish manager left.
“They have a head coach with big experience. This is the coach who achieved a lot of successes in his career. He pays a lot of attention to a lot of the details which make up the game of football.
“This is a very strong national team, especially physically and in defence. Another important thing is that their players play for strong and famous teams in England — Manchester, Liverpool, Blackburn and so on.
“We have to play against a very strong opponent. They have a very dangerous striker in Robbie Keane. We will play a strong game and I am sure we will have our chances to win.”
It was very much a multicultural affair at the Bruchweg Stadion yesterday where Irish, English and German journalists found themselves asking the Georgian coach — an Argentine — questions that were translated into Spanish.
Cuper’s actual presence in such an unlikely posting after spells at Valencia and Inter Milan would have garnered far more column inches this week had his latest adopted country not found itself at loggerheads with their Russian neighbours.
It is with the recent conflict in mind that he deflects the inevitable question as to how he finds himself so far away from European football’s centre stage after his years working in La Liga and Serie A.
“This country has suffered a lot. This is not just about my position as head coach. This is very important, not only for me, but for our players and we will do our best, we will maximise our efforts to make the people in our country happy.
“They are suffering, they are still having problems and we want to give them some happiness for a short time at least. This is our goal and we have the possibility to do that.”
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