While interim manager Noel King was getting on with the business of preparing his players for tomorrow night’s game in Cologne, while also rebuffing LA Galaxy’s request that Robbie Keane be allowed miss Tuesday’s meeting with Kazakhstan, the process of selecting Giovanni Trapattoni’s permanent successor was being addressed by one of the men tasked with the job.
Not that Ruud Dokter, the Football Association of Ireland's high performance director, was giving much away, other than confirming he and Ray Houghton had already had discussions with "some" potentials candidates for the post.
'A lot of interest'
"There's a lot of interest in this position," he said in Malahide after the squad's final training session before departing for Germany. "And that's good because Ireland is important – everybody wants to be the coach of Ireland. So, yes, we have spoken to some people, but that's all I can say."
“Have you been speaking Dutch to any of them?” he was asked. “That’s a smart question,” he grinned, “but: no answer.”
Timeline? “We’ll come back [to the FAI] before Christmas.”
The FAI, though, had more pressing concerns yesterday after Galaxy coach Bruce Arena requested that Keane be released following the Germany game so he could play against Montreal Impact in the MLS next Wednesday – they also asked that Landon Donovan be freed from international duty with the United States, who have already qualified for the World Cup, to play in the same fixture.
Back in May, Arena had released Keane for the friendly against England at Wembley, so he might have anticipated a reciprocal gesture.
Galaxy website
The Galaxy website, though, quoted Keane as saying "as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to play for my country, and that's it", and later in the day the FAI issued a statement saying King had responded to Arena "to inform him that he has decided not to release Keane and trusts that he understands the position, having been an international manager himself."
Ironically, after the transatlantic ding-dong, Keane is a slight doubt for the German game having sat out training yesterday after taking a kick to the ankle on Tuesday.
“The medical people are dealing with it and we will assess it as we go on. He had a precautionary scan and he is resting; we’ll see what they say,” said goalkeeping coach Alan Kelly, who was, though, hopeful the captain would be fit to play.
Keane was the only member of the squad sidelined yesterday – Joey O’Brien, Anthony Pilkington and Kevin Doyle all returning to training having missed Tuesday’s session.
While the 6-1 defeat at home to Germany a year ago will still linger painfully in the memories of the players involved that night, Kelly has somewhat happier recollections of facing the same opposition, a member of the side that won 2-0 in Hanover in a friendly before the 1994 World Cup finals.
“And that was my full debut,” he said. “A fantastic game to be a part of, keeping a clean sheet was superb.”
In the space of three months that year, Ireland beat the Netherlands in Amsterdam, Germany in Hanover (both friendlies) and Italy in New Jersey in the opening game of the World Cup, a stark contrast to more recent struggles against top ranked sides.
Part of Dokter’s FAI brief is to assist in the development of young Irish players so that, in the longer term, the senior team will have enough quality to produce a string of results not dissimilar to those achieved almost 20 years ago.
Appointed in April, Dokter, who is assisting King in preparations for tomorrow's match, was speaking publicly for the first time yesterday about his role in Irish football.
Long-term process
"It's a big job and it's a long-term process," he said. "I know where I am going, I have an idea and a vision. It's not about me saying 'I am from Holland and this is what you have to do'. That would be nonsense. You cannot copy other countries' systems, but you take the good parts."
“I hear all the time, ‘we don’t have technical players’. We do. But we need creative players, players who can make good decisions in a game, and that’s why coaches should be focusing on allowing the children to make mistakes.
“It’s very important, in that way they will develop their creativity instead of stopping and passing, and focusing on only the result. That’s what we have to develop.”
In light of Joachim Löw’s observation yesterday that the Irish “can defend really well, it’s part of their tradition, to defend their own goal, like in Gaelic football or rugby . . . they always fight until they fall over” – not to mention the thoughts of Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger – “their hearts are in the right place” – Dokter might have his work cut out to change continental perceptions about Irish football.
“The Irish are known across Europe for the direct game, the passion for it, for chasing the ball,” he said. “You have to keep that, but the game has evolved and you have to adapt to that too. That’s the key and that takes time. There is so much work to be done.”
