Malta’s long-standing difficulties to cope with the direct playing style of Scandinavian teams were again evident in Friday night’s 3-0 defeat to Norway.
Coach Pietro Ghedin was anything but impressed with his team’s performance as Malta again paid a high price for some erratic play, particularly on the flanks.
“Once again, we were punished for two defensive mistakes,” Ghedin said of Norway’s two first-half goals which shattered Malta’s hopes of avoiding defeat in their second Euro 2016 qualifier.
“We played with more discipline at the back in our previous match against Croatia.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the players did their best and performed to the top of their abilities but yet again we were undone by two soft goals.”
Going over the reasons that led to Malta being outclassed by the Norwegians, Ghedin was unequivocal in his criticism of what he perceived as a soft, casual approach by his players.
“The game was played at a high tempo and the rhythm and intensity were elevated.
“We couldn’t cope with their movement on the flanks and their crisp passing laid bare our limitations,” Ghedin explained.
“We gave away two early goals and that was a huge blow for us.
“If we continue with this casual approach in our next games, we can’t win nowhere and never. This is not the way forward.
“If you play for fun, you will never stand a chance.”
“We didn’t have a decent shot on goal, that is true, but the problem was that we conceded early goals,” Ghedin lamented.
“Going forward against such an opponent was never going to be easy.”
As attention shifts to tomorrow’s home qualifier against Italy, Ghedin is confident that his players will put Friday’s upset behind them and focus 100 per cent on their next assignment.
He believes that, in these circumstances, there is no time to change tactics.
“We only have two days before the Italy match and changing tactics will not solve the problem,” the Italian contended.
“We can’t just push a button and the team switches from 3-5-2 to 4-4-2. It doesn’t work like that.”
Italy’s low-key performance against Azerbaijan is likely to render Malta’s task even more difficult as Azzurri coach Antonio Conte will urge his team to raise their game by several notches at Ta’ Qali.
“Italy have the luxury of changing five players and still remain very competitive.
“I only have 25 players to choose from, so I’ll stick to my plans,” Ghedin said.
Norway coach Per-Mathias Hogmo was delighted with his side’s display in Friday’s game.
“I’m always concerned about the next game and I said before this qualifier that we have to respect our opponents,” Hogmo said during the post-match news conference.
“We wanted to control the match from start to finish and the players managed to do that. But those two early goals eased the pressure.
“We showed good technical abilities to open up Malta and they were rarely given the chance to pose any problems.”
Asked about his decision to leave 15-year-old playmaker Martin Odegaard on the bench, Hogmo replied: “Martin is still very young.
“He has a bright future ahead of him and will surely get the chance to make his debut for the national team.”
Bumper crowd
Tomorrow’s qualifier at the National Stadium is expected to be a sell-out as, until yesterday evening, just under 300 tickets remained unsold.
Italy are due to touch down this evening with Conte expected to conduct a light training session at the stadium soon after their arrival.
As part of the MFA’s Football Social Responsibility programme, the players’ escorts for Friday’s qualifier against Norway were members of the Special Olympics while those for tomorrow’s game against Italy will hail from Inspire.
The MFA have teamed up with Cisk, one of their main sponsors, to set up a fan park for the Malta-Italy game.
The fan gathering zone, located in the grounds of the MFCC, opens at 5pm.