Although the defeat against Italy still hurts a bit, Malta needs to think positively ahead of today’s home game against Azerbaijan in Group H of the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifiers.
This is national coach Pietro Ghedin’s message to his players, keeping in mind that Malta’s opponents today cannot be regarded as easy ones.
“Today’s opponents are not easy at all” Ghedin warned when addressing the media yesterday afternoon at Ta’Qali.
“Since changing their coach, they have made a huge improvement, drawing against Norway and against Croatia. They have even beaten us 2-0 last March.We must be very, very careful”.
Azerbaijan are very technical when holding possession and they are capable of pushing forward with swift counter attacks, observed Malta’s national coach.
Azerbaijan are in fifth place in the Group and have five points from seven matches. Malta, behind them, have only one point.
According to Ghedin, this is the time to make some amends and change course.
“It was only natural that we defended against Italy. But against Azerbaijan we should not defend that much. We must give it all, and even more, to make up for defeat against Italy. We will try, through our capabilities, to have some more luck in our play. We must make less mistakes, but we will change something for sure” promised the national coach. “It is only normal that against Azerbaijan we make something more than just defend as we did in the previous match”.
Ghedin will be talking to his players in the match’s build-up and together they will analyse what they should do.
There is a sense of revenge for the 2-0 defeat suffered in Baku even among the Maltese players themselves.
Present at the media briefing yesterday, Roderick Briffa was of the opinion that Malta did not deserve to lose in Baku.
“At home, everyone is expecting us to take points. This is the time to make up for the away defeat”
Midfielder Andre Schembri was also upbeat about Malta’s chances today.
“Although there are no easy matches at international level, Azerbaijan are no extraordinary opponents, as we have discovered from our previous experience in Baku and we cannot afford to end up empty handed again this time” he said.
Anything less than a draw today will be considered as a great flop for Schembri.
Regarding Paul Fenech’s unavailability due to suspension for the match against Azerbaijan, Pietro Ghedin said that the Birkirkara midfielder is a key component to Malta’s team but he is only a member of a good group of Maltese players who work together. Ghedin is more than confident that whoever plays instead against Azerbaijan today, will substitute him very well.
And from what we observed during the Maltese national team’s training session yesterday afternoon, Steve Pisani may well take Fenech’s place in an otherwise unchanged team from the one who played Italy last Thursday.
Report by Silvio Vella