Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given says that victory over Russia will give his team a huge advantage in the race for top spot in Group B, Goal.com reports.<\/p>\n
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Following Russia\u2019s defeat to Slovakia the Manchester City keeper knows that another loss will leave the Sbornaya with a mountain to climb<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere is an opportunity there now. Obviously they lost last month and it\u2019ll give us a lot of daylight if we can get three points,\u201d Given told reporters in Dublin ahead of the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The Boys in Green won their opening two games but now face a tougher challenge in the next week.<\/p>\n
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He said: \u201cIt\u2019s a different level. These two games will probably prove where we are as a team and ultimately if we\u2019re going to qualify for the European Championships. Two massive games, obviously we\u2019re focusing on Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The 34-year-old, who made his debut against Russia 14 years ago, was also asked if he would settle for a draw on Friday.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIdeally, we\u2019re at home, we want to win. But we must not lose as well so I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s a good question. We want to win the game but we know Russia have got some great players as well and it\u2019s going to be one of the most difficult games in the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It will be the first major competitive match for the Republic in the new Lansdowne Road stadium and Given expects the crowd to play their part in the occasion.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think the fans will have a big part to play on Friday night as well. Hopefully they can get the volume cranked up to the max at Lansdowne Road and they\u2019ll have a big, big part to play,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Republic of Ireland…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[10550,10549,16698,16697],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}