"?Republic of Ireland forward Shane Long is solely focused on his country's match-up with Sweden which takes place on Monday, as they look to kick off their Euro 16 campaign in style.
Long produced a remarkable finish to down World champions Germany 1-0 during the qualifying stages in October, and hopes that he could fire Ireland to another big victory when he faces the Swedes next week.
"For four months now I've been waiting for this Sweden game and I just really want to get out there and get the result we deserve," he said via "?Goal.com. "We've worked hard to get here, we've come from a difficult situation in the group to qualify.
"And it would be a shame to just throw it all away in the first game.
"So that's our full motivation "? to go out there and beat Sweden and put ourselves in a good position to qualify."
Long admits that criticism helped drive the team, along with a few outside results.
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"We're fully focused on that Sweden game and we'll try to not let the occasion get to us," he added.
"After we drew to Scotland, everyone was saying it was a three-horse race and Ireland were out of it," he said.
"It really spurred us to go on. Of course we relied on a few other results to go our way but we still had to capitalise on our games.
"Just to qualify is an amazing feeling. We've been here once before and we didn't really perform the way we should have or the way we can. And we've been regretting it for four years. So hopefully we can put that right this time."