Euro 2020 qualifying Group C: Belarus v Northern Ireland (Borisov Arena, Barysaw, 7.45pm Irish time)
THE Belarus Minister of Internal Affairs was reportedly relieved of his duties yesterday after seven years in the role, less than a fortnight before the 2019 European Games come to Minsk.
Igor Kriushenko may not lose his football job if the hosts fail to defeat Northern Ireland tonight but he’s still set to bring back some of his ‘big guns’ in an effort to shoot down the visitors.
The country’s best-known footballer, former Arsenal and Barcelona man Alexander Hleb, isn’t in the squad at the age of 38, having played in the Belfast fixture.
However, it’s expected that goalkeeper Andrei Klimovich and creative players Ihar Stasevich and Syarhey Kislyak could all return after being rested for the 2-0 home loss against Germany at the weekend.
Belarussian hopes of qualifying for Euro 2020 via this route may effectively be over but they have reached the Nations League semi-finals for League D and Northern Ireland boss Michael O’Neill believes that may still inspire them:
“They changed the system and also personnel [against Germany], maybe the coach is looking at what's down the line in terms of their Nations League play-offs and possibly looking at that in terms of preparation.
“But it was a difficult game in Belfast. I felt we had a lot of control in the game, but then we gave away a goal, a slightly unfortunate goal, after we had got ahead.
“Whilst we always felt we could go on and win the game, we had to go to virtually the last few minutes to do that. As Estonia showed the other night, Belarus will look at this game as one they potentially could win.”
Stasevich ‘scored’ that goal at Windsor Park via a large deflection off Stuart Dallas, and if he’s back he’ll be on home ground tonight, at the home of perennial Belarus champions BATE Borisov.
The hosts will aim to live up to their ‘White Wings’ nickname more than that agricultural acronym’s explanation, Borisov Automobile and Tractor Electronics.
Even the long-serving President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko – who handed that high-ranking official his notice - wasn’t in post the last time NI won an away double-header, in the summer of 1993.
Those games weren’t too far away, in Lithuania and Latvia, but even though he played in both O’Neill discounted them as “distant memory.”
Much more important is the good mood engendered in the visitors by winning their three qualifiers so far, including Saturday evening’s 2-1 comeback victory in Estonia, O’Neill said:
“We come into the game mentally in a good place because we won the last game, our mental tiredness is not the same, so that should be the key factor for us”.
