Republic unchanged for Lisbon test

The Republic of Ireland team for Saturday's World Cup qualifier against Portugal is set to be the same as that which started against the Netherlands, Mick McCarthy confirmed yesterday at a press conference in Dublin.

The one doubt is over the fitness of goalkeeper Alan Kelly, but the Blackburn player was adamant yesterday he would be ready for action in Lisbon.

No other injury problems were expected. However, Roy Keane, who had not arrived at the team hotel by late last night, Steve Staunton and Ian Harte, all missed the squad's first training session yesterday reportedly due to problems with their flights from England.

Should McCarthy field an unaltered XI this weekend, he will have achieved something he didn't manage in the whole of the campaign for Euro 2000.

Yesterday he was upbeat about his side's prospects in Lisbon, insisting that if his players can take the ball down and play as they did last month when they took a point from the Netherlands then they can prove a match for the comfortable favourites.

"As long as I've been in charge the aim has been the same, to take it down and keep it," he said yesterday. "The fact is that sometimes we do it better than other times. In Amsterdam we did it well until the last 10 minutes and that's when we saw just how difficult it can be to play against a team like the Dutch when you're chasing after the ball the whole time."

The Irish coach conceded readily that the Portuguese will not be short of confidence on Saturday evening, that they will "fancy themselves to score goals against us".

"They have the players all right. But what you have to wonder is whether they'll fancy the tackling, tracking and blocking: all those messy jobs that need to be done. If you get the people who have the starring roles chasing back then you really have a team that going to worry your opponents."

The game plan for Lisbon will be unchanged from last month with McCarthy ready once against to play Robbie Keane just off Niall Quinn in a two-man attack - itself a major departure from the dark and disappointing days in Yugoslavia and Croatia during the last qualification campaign when the Irish opted for a packed midfield and a lone striker.

When asked about the change in approach this time McCarthy observed that "as I remember it, we lost both of those games". Pushed about his omission of Leeds United midfielder Stephen McPhail, who was overlooked for Lee Carsley's place in the panel in favour of Stoke City's Graham Kavanagh, McCarthy said that having talked to Leeds manager David O'Leary he was satisfied that McPhail was still some way off being fully fit after an Achilles tendon problem.

Raring to go, on the other hand, was Robbie Keane, who bounded in to meet the media after his international manager had departed. The young Dubliner had heard only a little earlier about the sacking of his coach at Inter Milan, Marcello Lippi. But his reaction to the news gave a dramatic indication of how the 20-year-old striker is settling into the dog-eat-dog world of Italian football.

"I'm shocked," said Keane, before adding "it's a pity, because he was a good man, he was good to me. We'd had a bad start to the season but that wasn't all his fault and with the team we have there we all thought that we could turn it around.

"But," Keane added, "that's football, you have to move on. You can't just keep on talking about it." Eh, ciao then, Marcello.

While the team has struggled, the Irishman, who says he is settling in well and progressing in Italian lessons, has consistently won praise for the way he has performed.

The versatility he has displayed in moving effortlessly to a new role on the right is something that will stand to him when Christian Vieri and, somewhere further down the line, Ronaldo return and the competition for places really hots up.

"I've been playing on the left (and) on the right for Inter, all over the place. But to be honest I don't really care where I play, I'm just happy to be involved.

"As for the others, Vieri was back training there for a while and then went to France, I think, for some more treatment." He said he hadn't yet met Ronaldo, who is recovering from a longterm injury, "but it will be great to get to play with even more world-class players."

He is looking forward to again teaming up with Niall Quinn on Saturday. "I don't mind playing off Niall. He's big, he's good at holding the ball up and he wins a lot of headers. I think it went well between us in Holland.

"After the way things went there all the lads seem very confident but we're not kidding ourselves, they're a great side so it's going to be difficult."