SOCCER:THE QUESTION of James McCarthy's international future should finally be resolved beyond a lingering doubt some time late on next Saturday week, according to Giovanni Trapattoni, who strongly suggested yesterday the Wigan midfielder is in line to make his competitive debut against Macedonia.
The 20-year-old, who remains entitled to play for his native Scotland until he has played competitively for Ireland, appears to have cleared up the Roberto Martinez-fuelled misunderstanding that prompted Trapattoni to question his commitment to the cause last month and could even start the European Championship qualifier if he impresses over the course of the build-up in training, according to the manager.
“Technically, he is a good player and we have to find a way of getting him into the team that best plays to his strengths,” said Trapattoni.
When asked about the various options the versatile midfielder might offer, the Republic of Ireland manager said: “He is young and young players don’t control the team. The more senior players can do that. What a young player can add is different – athleticism, enthusiasm and it will be good for us to be able to put him in once we can see how the team is performing.
“But maybe he will convince us to do things differently,” he continued. “In training he showed what he could do and so he played. Paul Green was exactly the same.”
It is a nice idea but the reality is that McCarthy seems highly unlikely to start the game against Macedonia and may, given his club’s difficulties at present, come under pressure to skip the game against Uruguay in order to rest ahead of the Premier League encounter with Tottenham four days later.
McCarthy will, however, be one of the players most likely to appear from the bench as long as the circumstances don’t specifically demand an alternative course of action by the manager.
On the plus side, in any case, the Italian’s doubts about the player’s desire appear to have been cleared up at what is said to have been a successful meeting last week with Trapattoni. The Italian recounted how McCarthy reacted when he asked the Wigan midfielder where he saw his international future:
“He had a smile on his face as he told me that he wants to stay with Ireland. I told him: ‘Thank you very much, on behalf of your country, thank you’.”
The manager, though, seemed to have taken umbrage at the suggestion widely made in the course of the coverage of the McCarthy story that he does not have enough contact with his current or potential players and he made a point of revealing he had met with Jamie O’Hara during his time at Portsmouth, but found that the midfielder had not made a firm decision regarding his future.
He went on to reveal that contact with the player, now on loan at Wolves, is ongoing but observed: “It’s important that he makes a clear indication of his desire.”
The Italian, who turns 72 on Thursday, then sought to address the suggestion by Stephen Ireland in his recent interview with French football magazine So Foot that he had been arrogant by claiming that while he had dealt with countless players over the course of his career, none could ever accuse him of arrogance but that he appreciated that journalists sometimes had to make things “more colourful for the sake of their stories”.
Those journalists present sought to assure him that even the most unscrupulous hack would be unlikely to see the need to liven up an Ireland interview, but Trapattoni simply could not be persuaded that the accusation against him had actually come from the Newcastle United player rather than the media who merely relayed the contents of his interview.
McCarthy’s inclusion aside, meanwhile, yesterday’s announcement was robbed of a fair bit of its news value by the manager’s decision to include just about everybody in a squad of 29, thereby deferring decisions on the fitness of Richard Dunne (who remains a major doubt) and Robbie Keane (who is far less of one at this stage) amongst others until closer to the games.
Lest anyone get the idea, however, that the size of the squad suggests Trapattoni has become a gaffer who just can’t say no these days there was still no place for QPR goalkeeper Paddy Kenny, whose club form would have appeared to put him in a strong position for a recall.
Instead, Darren Randolph of Motherwell and Millwall’s David Forde will provide back up for Keiren Westwood and one of them will make his international debut in the event that the recently injured Coventry City goalkeeper is unable to play for any reason.
Giovanni Trapattoni revealed yesterday he is hopeful a game against his native Italy in the US can be arranged for the end of the season. One possibility that has been mooted is the squad may stop off in London on the way back from the European Championship qualifier in Macedonia on June 4th, train there for a couple of days and then head for America and a rerun of the famous 1994 World Cup encounter, as well as another game against unidentified opposition.
The venue is most likely to be either Philadelphia or Boston with New York having apparently been ruled out by the promoters. “It’s a possibility,” the Italian said yesterday.
THE 29-MAN SQUAD
Westwood (Coventry City), Randolph (Motherwell), Forde (Millwall); Foley (Wolves), O'Shea (Manchester Utd), Clark (Aston Villa), Coleman (Everton), Dunne (Aston Villa), St Ledger (Preston NE), Kelly (Fulham), O'Dea (Celtic), Kilbane (Huddersfield); Wilson (Stoke City), Gibson (Manchester Utd), Whelan (Stoke City), Green (Derby), Lawrence (Portsmouth), McCarthy (Wigan Ath), McGeady (Spartak Moscow), Treacy (Preston), Andrews (Blackburn), Fahey (Birmingham City), Duff (Fulham); Keane (West Ham Utd), Walters (Stoke City), Doyle (Wolves), Long (Reading), Best (Newcastle Utd), Keogh (Bristol City).
