By Chris Wright
Even Damien Duff can't believe what he saw. No sneaky handballs. No dodgy refereeing decisions.
Just delicious, organic, line-caught wild Alaskan qualification.
Thanks to their stonking 4-0 first-leg victory in Talinn, the Republic of Ireland breezed
their way unencumbered past Estonia with a 1-1 draw in the return-leg in Dublin last night enough
to see Ireland emerge from the play-offs with a 5-1 aggregate winning margin and a spot in the pots
for Euro 2012 safely tucked under their belts.
Let's begin this morning with team news ahead of tonight's game against Borussia Dortmund.
Just to maintain the balance of the universe, Abou Diaby's return to the squad comes as Tomas
Rosicky drops out, having picked up a 'small thigh strain' in training. Diaby hasn't played yet
this season having undergone surgery on his ankle in the summer and I suspect he'll start from the
bench.
Last night I got stuck at work till 2200 so Sky+'d the game. Obviously kept up to date with the
score while I was here and knew we had lost. I was reading twitter comments and some comments
posted on here last night and had the impression that this was a shambles and Chelsea had a
shocker! My view is far from that and we were hard done by.
