Nothing is impossible in sport. That said the mountain which the Republic of Ireland has to climb to line out in Qatar in 446 days time is pretty steep.
Opening window defeats away to Serbia and at home to Luxembourg make it unlikely but with six games still to be played there are still 18 points available.
We led for 20 minutes in Serbia back in March. Portugal needed an own goal to beat Azerbaijan by the minimum margin in the same window and they have been held at home in recent games by Poland, Ukraine and Serbia.
Some of our players might also be fired up by the Portuguese manager Santos’ reference to us as a British team.
That said they have Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes at their disposal and are one of the world powers of the game.
Are they beatable, sure isn’t anyone in a game of 11 v 11 over 90 minutes.
“You can’t go to Portugal and defend for 90 minutes and I think we have to go and be positive in our approach,” said Manager Stephen Kenny
“Definitely it’s a challenge, there’s no doubt but we’re really looking forward to the week. It’s a great game for the players to play in.”
“It’s a real tough challenge, Portugal have some really outstanding players, there’s no doubt about that, but a lot of our players are looking forward to showing what they’ve got.”
The bookies suggest it is a done deal already with odds of 19/1 available about a surprise win but we live in hope.
Peter Collins will present live coverage on RTÉ 2 tonight from 7 PM with the kick-off scheduled for 7-45 PM. Liam Brady and Didi Hamann will be in the studio with live commentary coming from Faro from Darragh Maloney and Ronnie Whelan with Tony O’Donoghue reporting.
Northern Ireland continue their qualification journey tomorrow night away to Lithuania. They opened up their Group C campaign with a 2-0 defeat to Italy before drawing 0-0 at home to Bulgaria. Switzerland are the fifth team in the group who will be coming to Belfast next week.
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