Europe Group Three preview

WC Qualifiers

Czech Republic travel to Belfast to face Northern Ireland, Slovakia play Slovenia while Poland meet San Marino.

Czech Republic head coach Petr Rada is confident his team will overcome Northern Ireland in Wednesday's World Cup qualifier despite the absences of the retired Jan Koller and injured Tomas Rosicky.

The midweek match in Belfast will be the first competitive game at the Czech helm for Rada, who took over the national-team reins in July after spending two years as predecessor Karel Bruckner's assistant.

He oversaw a 2-2 draw against England in a friendly at Wembley last month - his team denied victory only by a stoppage-time equaliser by Joe Cole - and feels that trip proves his side can cope without the key duo against tricky opposition.

"We proved to ourselves that we can succeed against UK teams in the UK, and that we can do it without Koller and Rosicky," Rada told Czech Business Weekly.

"Now we just have to repeat it once again."

Northern Ireland began their campaign on Saturday with a 2-1 defeat to Slovakia in Bratislava.

Slovakia coach Vladimir Weiss is now urging his players to build on that win when they visit Maribor to take on Slovenia.

"It was an obligation to win in the match against Northern Ireland at home to maintain our chances to advancing from our group," said Weiss.

"We have done it and we can concentrate on the match in Slovenia now.

"We have to build on the three points from the first match and we do not want to come back with nothing."

Slovakia defender Martin Petras is expecting a difficult encounter against a Slovenia side that earned an impressive 1-1 draw in Poland on Saturday.

"Slovenia are not an easy opponent. They have a number of quality players in their team.

"The first goal will be very important."

Poland will look to pick up their first win in Group Three when they go to San Marino.

Arsenal goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski is keen to forget Saturday's draw against Slovenia and focus only on San Marino.

"We played pretty well the first 20 minutes," he said. "We scored and we had the opportunity to increase our advantage. Then we didn't play anymore as we wanted.

"There was a little change in the defensive line. Now we will try to correct the errors. I am sure that we will play better from now on.

"We all hope that we will qualify for the World Cup and I can assure everybody that we will do anything to return from San Marino with the three points."

Poland coach Leon Beenhakker will be without Bartosz Bosacki on Wednesday after the Lech Poznan defender sustained an injury against Slovenia.

Wisla Krakow striker Pawel Brozek also remains sidelined.