Victory the priority for cautious Trapattoni

ONE OF Giovanni Trapattoni’s favourite press conference observations goes roughly along the lines of: If you want a show go to…

ONE OF Giovanni Trapattoni’s favourite press conference observations goes roughly along the lines of: If you want a show go to the Scala but football is about winning matches; and it was no great surprise at all when he came out with it yesterday after being asked by a visiting reporter what he thought of Egil Olsen.

The now 68-year-old brought his side and its long ball game to previously unimaginable heights during his first stint in charge of Norway, who were briefly rated the second best team in the world not long after the Fifa rankings were launched in 1993 and made it to two World Cups during his eight-year reign. And he’s not doing too badly this time around either, with the former winger’s side having won all three of their opening games in the campaign to qualify for Euro 2012, leaving them two points clear at the top of a group which includes Portugal and Denmark.

A similar start by the Republic of Ireland, Trapattoni no doubt believes, and criticism of his own side’s sometimes rudimentary approach might well be a good deal more muted. However, we head into this evening’s game off the back of a defeat and a draw which goes some way towards Trapattoni’s decision to stick with as many tried and trusted players as are still fit enough to drag themselves onto the pitch.

There are, to be fair, one or two points of interest in the team he named at lunchtime yesterday, with Keith Fahey being handed an opportunity to show what he can do in central midfield and Greg Cunningham returning at left-back for Kevin Kilbane, having successfully hauled himself out of the Eastlands shadows and made a positive start to his loan spell at Leicester City.

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At yesterday’s press conference Shay Given, who will captain the team in the absence of Robbie Keane, sounded like he wouldn’t have minded joining the teenage defender on his travels, with the goalkeeper making little attempt to hide his growing frustration at life on the City bench.

“It’s very difficult, to be honest. You try and work hard in training but obviously it’s difficult to try and re-enact a match situation,” he said. “I wish I was playing more because I would feel sharper but this is the situation I’m in and I can’t really change that.

“I played with Man City in Europe a couple of weeks ago and now I have this game tomorrow so I’m getting the odd game. But it’s not ideal; you want to play every week. It’s frustrating. I think I’ve already said how I’m coping – not very well to be honest. But I can’t change the situation at the minute. I’ve just got to keep my head down and see what happens over the next couple of months.”

In the circumstances, even the prospect of edging ahead of Kilbane and becoming Ireland’s most capped player ever, as he plays international number 109, didn’t seem to do much to brighten the 34-year-old’s mood. “This game is more about me getting a game than the cap thing,” he observed.

For the likes of Séamus Coleman, Marc Wilson and Jonathan Walters, it seems safe to assume it was probably more about the cap thing, but they will have to wait, at least until the latter stages of tonight’s encounter, before they get their first taste of a senior international game.

Trapattoni emphasised early on yesterday that he hopes to hand debuts to the first two, including them in a three-man list of players who, circumstances permitting, he sees as being on course for second-half appearances. Aiden McGeady completed the trio although it was subsequently a little unclear as to whether the manager might, as he has previously suggested, change things about so as to give the Moscow-based midfielder a spell playing off a single frontman.

Later, when asked whether Walters and Stephen Hunt might also be in with a shout of featuring he said that he would like to get a look at the Stoke City striker before pretty much putting paid to Hunt’s prospects; suggesting that he had told Andy Keogh he was not bringing him over for this game on the basis that he wanted to look at new players and that Hunt scarcely fits that bill.

Few others amongst the starting line-up do either although the scarcity of defenders means that Darren O’Dea will earn his third cap despite being sidelined at Ipswich due to injury in recent weeks and Shane Long gets a rare start up front.

Elsewhere, the likes of Damien Duff, John O’Shea and Glenn Whelan bring experience and, with it, the “balance” that Trapattoni insists is necessary. He might point, too, to the fact his opposite number will not be naming any novices in his side tonight.

Olsen, in fact, has brought a talented and experienced group to Dublin with the likes of John Arne Riise, Morten Gamst Pedersen and Brede Hangeland the best known of the visitors. Still, it’s unlikely to be a classic and those in search of a show might, indeed, do well to check out the Scala.

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:Given (Manchester city); Kelly (Fulham), O'Shea (Manchester United), O'Dea (Ipswich Town), Cunningham (Leicester City); Lawrence (Portsmouth), Fahey (Birmingham City), Whelan (Stoke City), Duff (Fulham); Long (Reading), Doyle (Wolves).

NORWAY (probable):Knudsen (Stabæk); Høgli (Tromsø), Waehler (AaB), Hangeland (Fulham), JA Riise (Roma); Hauger (Stabæk); Huseklepp (Brann), Grindheim (Heerenveen), Pedersen (Blackburn), BH Riise (Fulham); Helstad (Le Mans).

HALF SLIGO TEAM OUT OF WORK

THREE DAYS after their victory in the FAI Cup final around half the Sligo Rovers first team squad have informed the players' union that they are available for work. PFAI chairman, Stephen McGuinness, estimates that a list of 135 players issued yesterday contains the names of about half the organisation's members who have been let go by their clubs since the end of the season, writes Emmet Malone.

Included in the list of Sligo players is Richie Ryan, who was recently named the PFAI Player of the Year, as well as four of the team that started Sunday’s game at the Aviva stadium; Gary McCabe, John Russell, Danny Ventre and Iarlaith Davoren.

McGuinness says that fewer than 10 per cent of players played this year under contracts that extended into 2011.