Trapattoni looking to end season on high note

Rep of Ireland v Algeria:FRUSTRATED BY the news from the Algerian camp that they would be doing no press conferences during their brief stay in Ireland, those English reporters who had travelled in the hope of talking to one of Fabio Capello's World Cup rivals ended up spending time in the company of one his countrymen instead.

It is not known quite what they made of Giovanni Trapattoni’s rather informal approach to press conferences but most of the locals certainly seemed to enjoy a 45-minute session with the veteran Italian and his captain, Robbie Keane, that had regular hints of “demob happy” about it.

A sure sign that we were into soccer’s silly season were the good natured exchanges at the end during which the manager was provided with tips on how to pronounce Keith Fahey’s name: thus far his version has been something along the line of “Fack-he” but he left for the team hotel yesterday afternoon looking thoroughly enlightened.

If the visiting hacks found it all a bit odd then they might have been puzzled too by Trapattoni’s decidedly upbeat assessment of his side’s progress during his first two years in charge on a day that he was handing a first international start to a 27-year-old Derby County midfielder whose career highlights are a League One play-off success and a Johnstone Paints Trophy win, along with a senior debut to a 19-year-old defender with two first-team appearances (both from the bench) to his name. Well, lads, welcome to our world.

The team, as it happens, was a pleasant surprise to those who had feared Trapattoni might stick as closely as possible to Tuesday’s line-up for tonight’s game against Algeria while replacing Paul McShane with someone a little more established than Greg Cunningham.

After preventing the 19-year-old from heading to the Ukraine for an underage qualifying tournament, however, and having been impressed by what he has seen since, the Italian has given the Manchester City defender the chance to impress in an audition which one or two others before him have failed.

The stakes are considerable for there is a pressing need to come up with cover or a replacement for Kevin Kilbane and Cunningham might well find himself playing some role in the senior set-up sooner than he had dared hope if he does well.

For Paul Green, the stakes may not be quite as high with the midfielder unlikely to do enough to vault above Glenn Whelan, Keith Andrews (who he replaces this evening) and Darron Gibson in the Italian’s pecking order.

That he is getting a start is welcome, though, even if the fact that he is getting the opportunity ahead of “Fack-he” suggests that there will be no significant tactical reappraisal by Trapattoni before the start of the new campaign.

Elsewhere, the manager has stuck to his usual guns (as long as Liam Lawrence gets over a groin problem) and he made no secret of his desire yesterday that the team finish the season with another win over a side that will be heading on the World Cup finals.

Keiren Westwood will, he suggested, play all 90 minutes as he wants to make changes outfield with Fahey and Shane Long amongst those, it seems, likely to get outings over the course of the night.

The North Africans laboured through their two group stages of qualifying during which they generally struggled away from home before finding the inspiration to beat Egypt in a play-off on neutral soil.

They subsequently had an unexpectedly good African Cup of Nations, making the semi-finals after putting tournament favourites, the Ivory Coast, out in the quarter-finals.

Manager Rabah Saadane, who has seen some of his regulars lose their club places, has sought to address the situation by bringing in new blood and around a quarter of his preliminary World Cup squad, several of them French under-age internationals who have availed of the new Fifa rules, will be hoping to make their debuts tonight or during the weeks ahead.

Tonight they will be without the well-regarded Rangers defender Madjid Bougherra who is being rested in the hope he will have fully recovered from a calf strain by June 12th when Slovenia await, while Lazio playmaker Mourad Meghni has already been ruled out until next season.

In short, Saadane’s staring line-up may well include players for whom the need to impress is rather more immediate than that for Cunningham.

Whether that proves to be a good thing in terms of the result is far from certain but Trapattoni will certainly view the game as a decent opportunity to secure the win he wants before the summer break.