John Buttigieg head coach of Malta National Team hopes that his players will be able to win over Georgian National Team in qualifying match of European Championship 2012 on October 8. The match will be held in the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi.
“Times of Malta” has spread the following statement of John Buttigieg:” We play the third match of EURO-2012 qualifier round. Each match is very important. Georgian National Team has quite well progress in the latest time and no doubt that they started qualifying round very well. Georgian team drew with Greece and Israel which own high ratings in our group. It is true that we will have tense match against them but we hope that will be able to win. We played very bad against Israel, in the second match saw progress against Latvia. We were playing quite well during the match and had many chance of scoring. Unfortunately, we could not use them”.
Head coach of Malta team is glad that Andre Schembri and Justin Haber had returned to team and sees some positive aspects of not being Daniel Bogdanovich in the team:” Schemberi and Haber deserve being in the National Team. I always pay attention to our players playing in oversees and in the last time Andre plays quite well. When some player misses the match it has opposite side, other player is given chance of playing and proving that deserves playing in the national team.”

John Buttigieg was waiting for K. Scicluna, who plays in “Valeta” as a defender, but he still suffers from injury.

“I hoped that Scicluna would play. He had several trainings with team, but after operation still has some healthy problems”- stated John Buttigieg.
Head coach of Malta National tam was again asked how much he worries that the best forward of team M. Mifsud, who scores double against Georgia in the last match, is still without team.
John Buttigieg stated the following:” This question is very actual, I always have the same answer for this question. This is not ideal situation and I want to assure you that, Mifsud also worries about it. He does his best to find some club.  In the last season was playing for three months in “Valeta”. He is necessary layer. I have called him up because I am sure that he can help to National Team. I hope that, he will solve club problems in the nearest future”.
  John Buttigieg is glad that they will play against Croatia on November 17 and not on October 12 as it was preliminary planned.” We need 12 hours to arrive in Georgia. We spend much time in traveling because we do not fly with carters, so Ministry of Foreign Affairs does its best to help us. I am glad that we will not play against Craotia soon after the match against Georgia”.
National coach John Buttigieg named a provisional 22-man squad ahead of the EURO 2012 qualifier against Georgia, but added that he should choose 18-man list for Tbilisi according to players clubs’ schedule but now his squad looks like so:

Goalkeepers:

Justin Haber (Ferencvaros)
Andrew Hogg (Valletta)
Mario Muscat (Hibernians)
Anthony Curmi (Tarxien)

Defenders:

Andrei Agius (Melfi)
Jonathan Caruana (Valletta)
Massimo Grima (Hamrun)
Edward Herrera (Hibernians)
Carlo Mamo (Marsaxlokk)
Joseph Zerafa (Birkirkara)

Midfielders:

Shaun Bajada (Birkirkara)
Roderick Briffa (Valletta)
Trevor Cilia (Birkirkara)
Paul Fenech (Birkirkara)
Ryan Fenech (Hamrun)
Jamie Pace (Valletta)
Kevin Sammut (Valletta)
Gareth Sciberras (Marsaxlokk)

Forwards:

Andrew Cohen (Hibernians)
Michael Mifsud (no club)
Andre Schembri (Ferencvaros)
Ivan Woods (Floriana)

Lasha Tabagari