Ireland's dealing hand lacks a few aces

SOCCER/World Cup 2010 Qualifying:The snow fell steadily in Sofia yesterday: nature's way, perhaps, of providing the grey Bulgarian capital with a coat of whitewash as visitors from Italy, Ireland and the rest of Group Eight's nations arrived in town for this afternoon's World Cup 2010 qualifying fixtures meeting, writes Emmet Malonein Sofia

Temperatures were the wrong side of zero as the FAI delegation made its way from the airport to the city's Grand Hotel. There, they are reduced to hoping they'll get a warm reception from their counterparts when today's negotiations get under way. The fact that they have only five dates on which they can play their five home games has left John Delaney, Don Givens and David Blood dependent on the kindness of strangers.

"I suppose we're hoping for a little bit of goodwill in certain areas," conceded Givens, the caretaker manager who makes his second appearance at this particular event, having previously been part of the team that hammered out Ireland's fixture list for the Germany 2006 campaign.

"We'll do as much as we can with the cards that we've been dealt," he said. "But it'll be difficult. A lot of what goes on at these things is about give and take and the Croke Park situation obviously limits our scope for manoeuvre. If you don't have much to bargain with, it stands to reason that life is going to be that little bit more difficult."

The association's problems stem from the fact that the GAA have the odd important game at headquarters during June and September. And they're compounded by the need to let the pitch rest during the spring. That leaves just two dates this October, two the following October and one, granted as a much needed favour by their landlords, during the March in between for the campaign's five home games.

The friendly dates in November and February, which the Republic of Ireland used last time to play San Marino, are unlikely to be of any use this time as playing them actually suited the Sammarinese and it is deemed unlikely any of Ireland's rivals will be similarly inclined.

FAI chief executive John Delaney admitted yesterday his main priority is to obtain agreement from Ireland's five group rivals to come to Dublin on those five dates - in whatever order. Only when they are sure that that has been achieved can the association's negotiators start to think in terms of desirable combinations of games.

"These are strange affairs," observed Givens. "They tend to be about the top seeds (Italy, in this case) thinking they should get absolutely everything they want and everybody else just trying to get what they can.

"Clearly, we're hampered in what we can do so we won't be the ones shouting the odds in there. But the bottom line is that you've got to play all of the countries home and away. The last time I was involved, we got everything we were looking for but our backsides were still out the window at the end of the campaign."

It's not clear what goals the Irish delegation will prioritise if they do get much beyond winning agreement on the home games issue but Givens is far from convinced about the traditional view that getting the big guns immediately after a major tournament offers the best chance of springing a surprise.

"I don't think it's necessarily the best way of going about it," he says. "My preference, I think, would be to see the team ease its way into the group and then finish up with a couple of games at home."

The latter is pretty much a necessity as is kicking off the campaign with two away games this September - the only alternative being an away game in June which Delaney said was something they would seek to avoid - and the priority then would be to avoid facing two tough opponents and the prospect of two early defeats.

Ideally, away double headers should involve no more than one game against a serious qualification contender and, on the face of it, the Republic's games against Italy should come immediately after other matches as the world champions should be better able to withstand the loss of key players to injury than the Irish.

"There's a bit of luck involved too," says Delaney. "The last time around we decided it would be best to avoid playing Cyprus out there during the summer and so when we got the game fixed for October we thought we'd done well but we didn't know then that Shay Given would be injured in October."

Sure enough, keeping him fit for the duration of the campaign to come would probably do more for Ireland's prospects than anything that might go the FAI's way today in snowy Sofia.