STEPHEN IRELAND'S anticipated return to the Republic of Ireland set-up for the training camp in Portugal next month and the friendly internationals against Serbia and Colombia is in serious doubt with the 21-year-old player said to be considering retiring from international football on a permanent basis.
The midfielder is said to have reacted coolly to the news he had been included in Giovanni Trapattoni's preliminary squad of 40 and Liam Brady's comments last week that he would be amongst the travelling party of 28 players unless he indicated he did not want to travel.
Sources close to the player have indicated he will meet Trapattoni in order to discuss the situation when the Italian formally takes on the job in May. However, the feeling amongst those around him is the most likely outcome of the talks at this stage is an announcement that the Manchester City player - who has scored four goals in six appearances for his country - will not be returning to the squad.
Such a decision would provide another remarkable twist to his colourful international career. Back in October 2002 he was told by Brian Kerr, the then Irish Youths manager, he would never call him up again after he reacted to being omitted from two European Championship qualifiers by requesting to be allowed return to his club rather than stay in Cork for the mini-tournament's third game.
Ireland subsequently vowed never to play again for Kerr and, sure enough, it was under Steve Staunton he graduated to the senior Irish squad. After his debut against Sweden he made quite an impact, scoring a number of very important goals. But he subsequently secured his release from the squad before last September's game against the Czech Republic in Prague by first claiming his maternal grandmother had died, then that his paternal grandmother had, and finally that these stories had been concocted so he could travel back to his girlfriend who, he said, had had a miscarriage.
It subsequently emerged Ireland was unhappy at the reaction of some other squad members to what appeared to have been a hair transplant. On the night before the Slovakia game a small number of players had apparently held him down and tugged at the hair, severely upsetting Ireland in the process.
It is this incident some team officials have privately admitted to believing is behind his reluctance to return to the squad. Nevertheless, when Don Givens derided him for his attitude when announcing his squad for the Brazil game in January, Ireland described the caretaker manager's comments as "childish" and suggested he would happily to return to the squad when a permanent successor to Staunton was appointed.
Now, it seems, despite constant support and encouragement from Sven-Goran Eriksson, who has said many times he believes Ireland's development as a player would be helped by being involved with the international set-up, he is far less certain about what he wants and one of Trapattoni's first tasks is likely to be talking the midfielder out of giving his temporary exile a far more permanent air.
