Irish fans face ticket struggle

The first obstacle facing Ireland in Bosnia-Herzegovina next month will be the Zenica’s intimate Bilino Polje Stadium itself, its capacity of 12,000 meaning that the official allocation of tickets for the Green Army could be as low as 600.

Immediately after yesterday’s draw in Nyon, FAI representatives met with their Bosnia counterparts at Uefa headquarters and, it’s understood, proposed doubling the Irish allocation to 1,200.

But there’s little confidence the Bosnian FA will comply with the request.

Nor will the Bosnians be expected to make life any easier on the pitch for the visitors. Seeking qualification for the Euro finals after an historic first appearance in the World Cup finals in Brazil last year, Bosnia were the highest ranked of the four seeded teams Ireland could have faced in the play-off.

But after underachieving in a European Championship qualification group which saw Belgium and Wales progress automatically at Bosnia’s expense, the reaction in their camp to drawing Ireland was mixed.

Most bullish was defender Ognjen Vranjes of Turkish side Gaziantepspor.

He said: “We were unlucky? I don’t think so — it was the Republic of Ireland who were unlucky in the draw. I am not trying to underestimate Ireland but I think Wales have better players than them.

“Any win in the first leg in Zenica would put us in the driving seat and if Ireland have to come at us in the return leg, we will have plenty of room to hit them on the break.”

By contrast, manager Mehmed Bazdarevic felt Ireland were the “the most difficult opponents” of the unseeded teams but, nevertheless, went on to express confidence that his side could “eliminate” them over two games.

“The only negative is having to play the second game away,” he said. “I wish it was the other way around.”

For their home leg, Bosnia will be without one of their most impressive players in qualification, Everton’s Mo Besic, through suspension, although their star man, Roma’s Edin Dzeko, is expected to have recovered from the knee injury which saw him miss the end of the qualification campaign.

And the former Manchester City striker sounded a note of warning in response to yesterday’s draw.

“The fact Ireland didn’t lose to Germany in qualifying speaks for itself,” Dzeko said.

The other play-off games are Ukraine v Slovakia, Sweden V Denmark and Norway v Hungary.