History is going to be made when England visit Dublin after 20 years, as they are set for an international friendly against the Republic of Ireland at Aviva Stadium on Sunday.
Both the teams will use this high voltage game as perfect preparations for their respective European qualifier clashes with Ireland facing Scotland on 13 June and England facing Slovenia on 14 June.
The Republic of Ireland have been decent in the qualifiers as they lie on fourth place in a tight group D, which comprises teams such as Germany and Poland as well. They have only won two matches so far in the qualifiers, but defeated the US 4-1 in their last friendly.
A victory against England in the international friendly will take their confidence to another level and set their foot on the right path.
They even held Germany 1-1 in October during the qualifiers, which speaks volumes about their character. Ireland are not an easy nut to crack as well under the guidance of Roy Keane, who wants his team to give it their all, as he did during his playing days for Manchester United and Ireland.
Their opponents, England have looked a solid team after their disappointing World Cup performance in Brazil as they have an absolute record in the qualifiers so far with five victories and are hence topping group E as well.
When these two teams met last in Wembley in 2013, the game finished in a draw at 1-1.
But it will be wrong if we just consider this game between the two nations as just another friendly. For, they are expected to go all out and win the game as well. Memories of their last clash in Dublin in 1995 gets refreshed as the game was abandoned after 27 minutes due to violent clashes in the crowd.
It was one of the darkest nights in world football, which will be better off without such incidents.
England manager Roy Hodgson has asked his fans to behave during the international friendly and does not want to talk about incidents after the game.
"The last thing we really want to be doing is talking after the game about incidents, so we can only hope that both sets of fans behave themselves and in particular our fans do not try to provoke the Irish fans by doing things they really should not do," Euro Sport quoted Hodgson as saying.
"They know they shouldn't do them, we're making it clear they shouldn't do them, so let's hope we don't have to talk about that after the game."
It is important that the only talking point after the game is football and there are players, who can grab headlines with their individual brilliance, in both the camps.
Both the teams have no injury concerns ahead of the crucial encounter.
Where to watch Live
The international friendly between the Republic of Ireland and England is scheduled for a 5:30 pm IST (1pm BST, 8 am ET) start with no live coverage in India.
Viewers in the US can watch it live on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes TV with live streaming option on Watch ESPN.
UK audience can catch the action live on Sky Sports TV, ITV 1 UK, while Ireland viewers can watch it live on ITV 1 UK.
