There was that most familiar of combinations, good and bad news for Steve Staunton yesterday as his German opposite number, Joachim Loew, named his squad for next week's European Championship qualifier in Stuttgart.
On the bright side for the Irish, Loew has had to omit three of the four centre backs who featured for the host nation at the World Cup from his panel, with Per Mertesacker, Robert Huth and Jens Nowotny ruled out of tomorrow week's game as well as the one against San Marino four days later.
Less encouraging from Staunton's point of view is the fact the recently-installed German coach expects to have Christoph Metzelder and Michael Ballack back for the games after the pair missed last week's impressive 3-0 friendly win over Sweden.
"We've certainly got some problems with our central defence," Loew said. "But we assume Michael will be able to return to training soon while I talked with Christoph Metzelder on the phone and he expects to be back in training by the start of next week. These two players are very important to us."
Loew has stuck loyally with the players who did so well at the World Cup where Germany beat Sweden, Argentina and Portugal on the way to a highly-creditable third-place finish.
VfB Stuttgart's Thomas Hitzlsperger and VfL Wolfburg's Mike Hanke are included despite having lost their first-team places at club level while Lukas Podolski retains his place and is expected to start against Ireland despite having made a poor start to his first season at Bayern Munich.
In place of the injured centre backs Loew has again called in Mainz defender Manuel Friedrich, Hertha Berlin's Malik Fathi and Arne Friedrich, also of Hertha Berlin, all of whom featured against Sweden.
Loew's problems are, in reality, rather mild compared to those Staunton would encounter if he was without three experienced defenders and the German coach looks set to have a very strong panel to choose from in every other department.
Since aggravating back and thigh injuries while playing against Liverpool in the Community Shield, Ballack has not been fit enough to make the bench at Chelsea and there must still be some doubt about his availability for the game in Stuttgart. Even if the 29 year-old were to miss out, however, Loew would be in a position to select a midfield that included Bastian Schweinsteiger, Bernd Schneider and Torsten Frings, one of the team's outstanding performers over the summer. Elsewhere, the team is likely to have big-name regulars like Philipp Lahm, Jens Lehmann and Golden Boot winner Miroslav Klose.
The Czechs, meanwhile, have included injured Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech in their squad for the qualifiers against Wales and Slovakia but Milan Baros, Vladimir Smicer and Zdanek Grygera are all ruled out due to injuries while FC Nurnberg midfielder Jan Polak who is expected to play a key role in the wake of Pavel Nedved's retirement, is suspended.
