Trap 'would swim the ocean' to play Spain

Giovanni Trapattoni’s squad announcements have taken him to all arts and parts; on Tuesday, it was the turn of Carrick-on-Shannon as the Irish manager named a 28-man squad for a forthcoming hectic schedule of games.

At the offices of the Leitrim County Council in the town, Trapattoni named a squad of 28, which he says will be ‘shortened late next week to accommodate injuries etc’.

History will have told the veteran Italian that it is the ‘etc’ within that sentence that he should be most concerned.

A seventeen-day meet up at the end of what has been a gruelling and tiresome campaign for much of the squad seems an inconvenience, though at least this time there does come the chance of facing England at Wembley and boxed neatly into a four-game circuit is a World Cup qualifier at home to the Faroe Islands.

On Friday June 7 at the Aviva Stadium, Ireland host the Faroes, five days after facing Georgia in a friendly, before rounding the series off by taking on the all-conquering Spanish at the Yankee Stadium in New York on June 11.

Just how many of the 28 he named yesterday will make the trip across the Atlantic will be an interesting headcount.

“I would swim the ocean to play against Spain,” Trapattoni mentioned after having insisted that he would ‘go without shoes’ to play in the more stellar of the three friendlies, a first clash with the Old Enemy at Wembley in 22 years and a first anywhere since an outbreak of rioting caused the abandonment of a Dublin friendly in 1995.

“We need this experience, it's heavy, but it's experience. We can divide the squad, give players 45 minutes, make six subs, and recover energy.”

Previous experiences should talk the 74-year old into approaching the next few weeks with cautious steps.

It is two years now, in May 2011, since Trapattoni publicly chastised James McCarthy, Jonathan Walters and Marc Wilson for not appearing for the Carling Nations Cup and was further aggrieved when McCarthy did not join in for a 0-0 draw with Croatia in Dublin.

During that time, Greg Cunningham, Leon Best, Cillian Sheridan and Anthony Stokes were considered among those as having made ‘progress’. Their international careers since have not, it is fair to say, even threatened to strike a match to the touch paper.

In Liege, in June ’11, Ireland defeated Italy 2-0. It was a shadow Ireland side that night.

Shay Given, Kevin Kilbane, Aiden McGeady and Robbie Keane sat on top of the absent list that also included Richard Dunne, Damien Duff and Kevin Doyle.

On a night when a spectacular Keith Andrew goal and a second by Simon Cox gave Ireland a win over Trapattoni’s fatherland, the manager highlighted Stephen Hunt and Darren O’Dea after the game when he spoke of their desire to play that night.

“They showed they have the heart to play, a heart that a lot of Irish players have,” he said.

“I wish that those who don't necessarily have the heart that it takes to be here would take the example of these players.”

A year earlier, McCarthy had felt Trapattoni’s stinging wrath when he did not travel to Dublin for a double-headed friendly meeting with Paraguay and Algeria. It was a decision that, in effect, meant that the Wigan Athletic player would spend considerable time in the international cold.

Paul Green and Keith Fahey turned up and won Trap over. It was here that the manager’s admiration for these players was largely fostered.

Later, when queried if Fahey was ahead of McCarthy, Trap responded: “If I don't call you and call McCarthy, who was tired the last time, it's not fair. I need this step by step, and it's possible to build.”

Wilson was also a victim of a decision not to attend at that time, while the list of those not present included the names of Stephen Ward, David Meyler, Darron Gibson, Caleb Folan, Aiden McGeady and Andy Keogh, who was unavailable due to the impending birth of his first child.

On this occasion, Trapattoni has named just one uncapped player in the 28: Norwich City’s Anthony Pilkington. However, the midfielder, watched by Trapattoni in the Canaries’ 4-0 win over West Bromwich Albion at Carrow Road on Sunday, is getting married two days after the England game – and would need to eat into his honeymoon to play against the Faroes in the qualifiers (a game for which McCarthy and Shane Long are suspended).

Much like with Keogh previously, Trap’s sentiment for missing football in favour of family seems to be lacking. “Four days after my wedding I played the semi-final of the cup. But at this moment he has the problem with the wife,” he smiled in Carrick-on-Shannon. You got a sense that it wasn’t intended as a joke, though.

Right back to Trap’s first year as Irish manager, 2008, he has had to deal with a spate of end-of-season withdrawals. When he headed off to the Algarve at the end of the 2007/08 English season, he had a panel of only 20 players; at the time, Damien Duff was the only one of the party to have in excess of 20 caps.

Andy Reid and Lee Carsley suffered because of their no-shows, but it was here that Glenn Whelan left a good first impression with his new international boss and he has been a Trap favourite from the outset.

This has been a long campaign for some of Trap’s key men. It remains unclear whether Robbie Keane will get the green light from his club, LA Galaxy, to fly over for the Wembley date, though it is plainly a date that the Tallaght man would relish.

The Faroe Islands game is the only one his club have to release for, mind, and given that they are the pay-masters there can be no guarantees that they will permit their player to play in a game that will surely have plenty in the way of competitiveness about it.

Consider that it has been a campaign in which McCarthy has played 36 times for FA Cup winners Wigan, who have been embroiled in a relegation battle that they lost on Wednesday, one in which Shane Long appeared 33 times for another relegated side, WBA.

Or there is Seamus Coleman, whose 30 appearances in a season that was interrupted by injury will have taken a toll, while Damien Delaney, holder of just five caps, has played 42 times for a Crystal Palace side that plays at Wembley two days before the Irish game, when they face Watford in the Championship promotion play-off.

Trap has vowed that it will be he and he only who will vouch for any cry-offs here.

“This trip creates the chance to work with the players for a longer period than usual in order to bond and plan for the remainder of our World Cup qualifier games,” he said in Leitrim.

“These matches will provide me with the opportunity to experiment with different players and tactics. I am looking forward to assembling the squad in London on May 26th.”

There will be a natural want for the Irish players to walk out at Wembley in a game of significance, but by the time they take in Spain, 13 days later, the novelty may well have worn thin.

Pre-season will loom and there are, of course, still those lingering memories of their pre-Euro 2012 training camp when players spoke privately of being ‘in camp’ for too long.

Trap will hardly have been paying much heed to the ill-fated tenure of his predecessor, Steve Staunton, but the minds here will surely wind back to that evening in May 2007 when he handed a cap to Baton Rouge Capitals forward Joseph Lapira, who replaced Daryl Murphy in a 1-1 draw with Ecuador.

Then, 25 players had pulled out of Staunton’s squad for a tour of America. The gaffer was left with just nine capped players. Lapira was the eleventh debutant on the night in New Jersey.

Alan Bennett, Darren Potter, Stephen O’Halloran and Colin Doyle started against Ecuador, while Joe O’Cearuill, Joe Gamble and Stephen Gleeson joined Lapira (the first amateur to play an international since the Bohemians player Willie Browne faced England in 1964) in coming off the bench.

Against Bolivia, the second game of a forgettable trip, Peter Murphy won his sole Irish cap.

It was a tour that had Staunton playing the role of a Sunday League manager ringing around gathering up a squad.

Trapattoni will hope not to have to key in the digits of a modern-day Lapira into his phone next month, but it would not be a surprise were he to have sweeping changes to make when his squad assembles at Dublin airport for the transatlantic flight.