The Republic of Ireland face a difficult task in order to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. The team are currently fighting against Austria and Sweden for the final qualification spot in their group. Germany’s impressive form means that the automatic qualification spot is out of reach for these contenders. They will have to qualify for the World Cup through the play-offs at best. Ireland are at a disadvantage compared with Austria and Sweden in this fight, which is putting a lot of pressure on manager Giovanni Trapattoni.
FAI Chief Executive John Delaney is the latest to put more pressure on Trapattoni by saying that the team should win four out of the last five qualification matches. He has said that only a return of 12 points from these matches will help Ireland at least come close to playing at the World Cup. Trapattoni, though, has done a remarkable job in the views of many to help Ireland qualify for a major tournament in the form of the European championships 2012 after a long time. However, Ireland did not enhance their reputation after suffering an embarrassing defeat in this competition.
After failing to win the last two World Cup qualifying matches, Ireland do need a victory from the next match against Faroe Islands in June.
“We’re running out of games to catch up. It would have been a bit easier had we won against Austria, but we move on. Our challenge is to try and win at least four of our last five games. We were very unfortunate to only get two points from the games against Sweden and Austria. We deserved more. But we have the Faroe Islands next (in June) and we should win that. Then, there’s the big double in September when we have Sweden at home and Austria away,” said Delaney.