A Hard Night At Windsor...
Wed, Sept 09 2009
Tonight was the biggest night in 30 years for Northern Irish football and the Northern Ireland football supporters.
With a valuable point in Poland on Saturday the players knew the value of this game and so too did the 14,000 GAWA who were out to make this atmosphere as intimidating as they could. The only change to tonight's team was Lafferty who's out injured replaced by Martin Paterson.
Northern Ireland started positively with Healy getting a shot on target in the second minute. Working well as a unit Northern Ireland didn't have too much defending to do until the 15th minute when a sublime run on the right wing from Weiss saw him turn Jonny Evans inside out and place a simple tap for Sestak. Slovakia one goal up. Not the start the Northern Ireland supporters were looking for.
The goal was all that was needed for Slovakia to settle into the game with some cool passing keeping our back four breathless. Northern Ireland had a number of decent free kicks but unfortunately didn't make any of them count when it mattered. Another set piece in the 27th minute saw Healy agonisingly shoot a yard wide of the left post as half-time loomed close.
Northern Ireland were having the majority of possession but doing little with it. The half finished with Stanislav Sestak's goal separating the two sides but it was the Slovak manager's son Vladimir Weiss that was the shining light in the first half.
Northern Ireland needed to be sharper in the second half and had to be more creative in attempts at goal. A strong start saw a mistake by Skrtel nearly see Pato, desperate for his international debut goal, nudge passed for an equaliser.
Northern Ireland kept up the pressure and were making The Slovaks start to sweat. The away side were starting to surrender possession cheaply as Northern Ireland grew in confidence but with work still to do. A snap shot fro Pato had a glimpse of reigniting the fire in the 65th minute but no sooner than that the fire was extinguished as Holosko who was only on seconds having substituted Sestak, scored at the other end with his first touch. The night was over for Northern Ireland.
Celtic's Niall McGinn came on and nearly scored with his first touch minutes later but it was now an uphill struggle for Northern Ireland. A disappointed Paterson was replaced by Chris Brunt in the 76th minute as time was fast running out. Vladimir Weiss was proving to be more than a handful but Slovakia had had two shots on target all game and capitalised on both.
Slovakia were cool in defence and did not seem to flustered by an increasingly desperate home side. They deserved credit for coming to Windsor and look every bit deserving of their position in Group F. Holosko nearly repeated his goal in the 88th minute to make the evening into a horror show. Marek Sapara nearly made it three for the Slovakians in the 92nd minute after a great strike came off the bar.
There were key players out of tonight's game but Worthington will not be looking to use this as an excuse. We will now have to depend on other results as well as win in Prague.
Final Score: N Ireland (0) 0 Slovakia (1) 2
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