How are things going?
These are the kind of games you dream about when you become a professional footballer, aren’t they? Yes, they are fantastic occasions. What we need to do now is make sure we don’t let the stakes affect the way we play or let the game just pass us by. It’s important that we prepare ourselves physically and mentally. That’s the only way we’ll be able to play our game and come away from Ireland with a good result.What do you think is the best way to counter the physical threat posed by the Irish: to meet them head on or rely more on your technical ability? What we have to do more than anything else is just play our game. Physical battles are part of football and we can’t avoid them. If we are going to impose our style, we need to win as many of them as possible.Does the fact there are only a few days between the first and second legs make much of a difference to your preparations? We went through something similar at the end of March against Lithuania (France won both games 1-0), though t
