SOCCER:THE REPUBLIC of Ireland's end-of-season friendly against Italy was finally confirmed for June 7th yesterday, at the Stade Maurice Dufrasne, the 30,000-capacity home of top-flight Belgian side Standard Liege.
The match will wrap up a busy couple of weeks for Giovanni Trapattoni and his players who are due to start arriving in Dublin this Sunday ahead of next Tuesday’s Carling Nation’s Cup game against Northern Ireland. That tournament concludes with the game between Ireland and Scotland on Sunday, May 29th, after which the squad will head to Skopje for the European Championship qualifier against Macedonia which takes place on Saturday, June 4th.
The team will then return to Dublin before heading to Belgium on Monday, June 6th. It is not clear yet how many of the senior players will depart from the squad in Dublin but Trapattoni has hinted a number would be allowed to go on holidays with younger, less experienced players offered the chance to impress against the four-times world champions.
Aside from his obvious personal interest in playing the Italians, confirmation of the game should please Trapattoni who had repeatedly expressed a desire to play quality opponents at the end of the campaign so as to get some additional time with his squad and the chance to test some of the peripheral figures in a what should be a fairly competitive setting.
Trapattoni, though, had seemed enthusiastic about the prospect of a longer trip to the US, where two games were to be played. For a while it seemed the first of them would be against Italy in New Jersey, the scene of Ireland’s only victory over the Azzurri in 1994 at the World Cup. In the end, the independent promoters of the games do not appear to have been able to make the numbers add up and so the event has been switched to Belgium where, presumably, it is intended to appeal to a resident Italian population of more than a quarter of a million.
Even before the possibility of senior players being released, the quality of the squad Trapattoni will bring into the game is fairly uncertain. The Italian named a large panel for the games 13 days ago but almost immediately had to acknowledge Damien Duff and Keiren Westwood would not be available for any of the fixtures while Aiden McGeady misses the Carling Cup games and Seán St Ledger, Ciarán Clark and John O’Shea are all injury concerns.
Richard Dunne is suspended for the qualifying game which raises the possibility he will leave the squad after the Scotland match but Kevin Doyle, Keith Andrews and Shay Given all look set to be available, at least for the Dublin games, after being involved to one extent or another for their clubs over the weekend.
Italy have claimed they will bring a strong group to the game. The side has been doing well under coach Cesare Prandelli who has revitalised the team since taking over in the wake of a poor World Cup finals campaign. They lead their European qualification group by five points from Slovenia and will head to Liege from a competitive game against Estonia the previous Friday night.
Tuesday, May 24th: Republic of Ireland v Northern Ireland (Aviva Stadium) 7.45.
Sunday, May 29th: Republic of Ireland v Scotland (Aviva Stadium) 6.30.
Saturday, June 4th: Macedonia v Republic of Ireland (Skopje) 8.30.
Tuesday, June 7th: Republic of Ireland v Italy (Liege) 7.45.
(All times Irish)
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