SOCCER:AFTER A three-day trip to weigh up his options, Giovanni Trapattoni has settled on the town of Gdynia, near Gdansk as the Republic of Ireland's base for next summer's European Championships. However, no decision has yet been taken on the squad's pre-tournament training base.
“Gdynia is pretty much perfect in terms of what we want,” the Ireland manager said yesterday. “We’re in Poland. In terms of training facilities, they’re perfect, and they are close both to the hotel and airport. It also works well that we have one of our matches in Gdansk. The transfer times for the other matches are very small (an estimated 30 or 40 minute flight).
“It’s a really good quality pitch even now,” he continued, “but they’ll be doing even more work coming into the summer months and by then it will be in pristine condition. It was important that we got a good surface. In Ireland and England we’re used to ones of good quality. It’s something that is important to us.”
Trapattoni and his team’s schedule prior to touching down in Poland remains less clear. Both he and Marco Tardelli yesterday visited the training facility in Montecatini, near Florence, that had been recommended to him by friends, but the 72-year-old has not made a decision yet.
The matter of warm-up games will be a major issue too. Uefa have granted permission for finalists to play one game against other qualified nations during the 30 days before the tournament and a game against England topped the Irish association’s wish list.
Both they and the English, however, intend to round off their preparations with a major send-off in front of their own fans at the Aviva stadium and Wembley respectively and the FAI must now wait on word from London on whether the FA there is still willing to play in Dublin during the period in question or whether it prefers to use its one glamour game permission slip from Uefa to host the most attractive opponents possible at their home venue.
“We’d certainly be open to a friendly against England,” says Trapattoni. “The news that Uefa have given the go-ahead for a match in the month before the championships opens that possibility. But it will come down to whether England want to play.
“It would give us a chance to test ourselves against one of the best teams in the world. But it will come down to the FA. If it happens before, fine, if it doesn’t it will come down to other options. I have no plans to speak to Fabio, it’s up to the FA to decide.”
As regards Montecatini, he said: “We’ve been down to visit it and from a facilities point of view the hotel is great and the pitch is great. It’s used for Serie C. Everything that we might require appears to be there but there will be a second evaluation of it. And there are other possibilities that we’re looking at. It’s the only one we’ve looked at so far and we liked what we saw, but there is no rush.”
The timing of any trip remains to be worked out too, he acknowledged. “It depends on how the friendlies fall into place,” he said. “There’s a possibility there could be a game before or during the camp.” The possibility of the team flying back to Dublin midway through has not been ruled out.
Trapattoni, meanwhile, reckons Shay Given will come through his current injury problems to take his place as Ireland’s number one at the championship despite his latest injury setback and the growing challenge for the goalkeeper’s jersey being mounted by Keiren Westwood who has broken into the Sunderland starting line-up in recent weeks.
“It’s going to be three to four weeks probably before he (Given) is back,” he said.
“But there’s a long way to go to April. Shay is my number one and I don’t see any reason why that will change. It’s good that we’re growing our options in every position.
“The fact that Keiren is playing well and David Forde has been for Millwall is a positive as was Shay moving to Villa.
“He’s out but that will happen to a few players between now and April. The important thing is that everyone is fit by the time the tournament comes around.”
