Malta U-21 coach Ray Farrugia will have to rely on his experience to lift the confidence levels of his players as they prepare to face Sweden away this evening (kick-off 18.00), seeking to chalk up their first point in the qualification round.
Indeed, this has been a poor campaign for the Under-21s, having failed to avoid defeat in their opening five matches and conceding no fewer than 20 goals in the process.
Farrugia’s team only managed one goal which came from a penalty in last Friday’s match at the National Stadium which the Maltese boys lost 5-1 to Group Seven leaders Poland.
The negative sequence of results is a worrying issue for Farrugia and his assistant Ronald Vella but equally troubling is the team’s failure to show the same fighting qualities and determination that have charac-terised the Under-21s in previous editions of the UEFA Cham-pionship.
In June, Malta U-21 started with a 0-2 defeat away to Poland who only succeeded in scoring their goals in the last few minutes.
On that occasion, the perfor-mance from the Maltese side was encouraging despite the unfa-vourable outcome.
However, after that the team suffered a steep downfall following 0-4 and 0-5 away upsets to Turkey and Greece respectively before two successive home defeats to Greece (0-4) and Poland (1-5), leaving Farrugia with a mammoth task to put his team back on track.
Sweden, too, have failed to live up to expectations in the group and in their last outing they were thrashed by Greece (5-1) at the FC Katerini Stadium.
Farrugia, however, knows this will be another difficult match even though he received some good news before the trip to Malmo when Bjorn Kristensen and Jean Paul Farrugia, both of Hibernians, and Christian Grech, of Pietà Hotspurs, joined the squad after missing Friday’s match against Poland.
All three are expected to start today but Farrugia was unable to finalise his formation yesterday due to some niggling injuries affecting his players.
“We know this is not a good moment for the U-21 team but we have to keep going,” a typically resilient Farrugia told Times of Malta yesterday.
“Results were not forthcoming and we’re still without a point after five matches. But, my belief in this squad remains the same. This is a great group of players and we all know they can do much better.
“Confidence is a key aspect of our game and, perhaps, our latest results may have left a negative impact on the players.
“So, I’m urging the boys to focus solely on this match. Sweden are coming from a heavy defeat and they will be extra motivated against us but that will not stop us from trying to do our best.”
Sweden will be all out for the three points today knowing any-thing short of victory would see them slip out of contention for qualification to the 2015 finals, to be staged in the Czech Republic.
Malta host Sweden when the group qualifiers resume in March.
Today: 17.30 Poland vs Greece; 18.00 Sweden vs Malta.