Gavin Cooney reports from Plovdiv, Bulgaria

HEIMIR HALLGRIMSSON HAS warned his players that Bulgaria’s recent 5-0 loss to Northern Ireland is an outlier, saying Ireland’s opponents in tomorrow night’s Nations League play-off will be “hard to break down.” 

Ireland must beat Bulgaria over two legs to avoid relegation from League B of the Nations League for the first time, with the first leg in Plovdiv tomorrow night. 

Though Ireland won’t be wading into a hostile environment – there are currently only around 4,000 tickets sold for the 18,000-capacity Stadion Hristo Botev – Hallgrimsson says Bulgaria will be a defensively resolute opponent. 

Though the headline result of their Nations League C campaign was a 5-0 loss in Belfast – Hallgrimsson dismissed it as an “outlier” – The rest of Bulgaria’s games finished either 1-0 or goalless. In the nine games they played outside of the Northern Ireland defeat last year, Bulgaria kept six clean sheets in nine games. 

That poses a challenge for an Irish side rarely adept at playing the role of attacking protagonist. 

“Patience is not the right word, maybe, but this is going to be a hard team to break down, for sure,” Hallgrimsson told his pre-match press conference. “All of our analysis points to the same thing. They always control the game, even without the ball. Electric going forward, individual skills in counter-attack, so rest defence is very important tomorrow.” 

Hallgrimsson pointed to the technical quality of Western Sydney Wanderers midfielder Bozhidar Kraev and PAOK attacker Kiril Despodov as Bulgaria’s primary attacking threats, though they have struggled for goals recently, scoring just five times in their last 10 games.

Bulgaria haven’t scored more than once in a game since the end of 2023, and their only goals since have come against Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Slovenia, Northern Ireland, Luxembourg, and Belarus. 

Ireland, meanwhile, arrive off the back of a 5-0 hammering against England at Wembley. Wins home and away to Finland, however, secured a third-placed finish, and thus the need to secure their League B status via this play-off. 

Hallgrimsson stressed the importance of avoiding relegation. 

“My thoughts are we need to play good opponents day in and day out to develop as a team, that’s why League B is important for us, there are differing views on it and I respect that, but I think it’s really important to stay in League B and play higher ranked opponents,” said Hallgrimsson.

Rocco Vata, Jimmy Dunne, and James Abannkwah would all earn senior debuts if they are called upon this week, and while all are in contention to play, Hallgrimsson won’t push any experimentation to the point of jeopardising the result. 

“We have players who don’t have caps and we’d like to see them in action, we called in players we feel are ready to play, that’s why we bring them in, it’s also a time to give players a chance.

“It’s not like we will lose anything or risk anything in this game, as a group we like to stay in group B and compete with better teams.” 

Ireland have a fully fit squad from which to choose.