OPPORTUNITIES ARE AT a minimum for Irish players hoping to force their way into Giovanni Trapattoni’s plans for this summer’s European Championships.
The Ireland manager was in Dublin ahead of tonight’s Soccer Writers’ Association of Ireland (SWAI) awards ceremony and when quizzed about the possibility of introducing new players ahead of Euro 2012, said it was unlikely to happen.
Ireland are scheduled to play the Czech Republic on 29 February while the FAI are hoping to arrange one more fixture in Dublin and Trap will use them to fine-tune his team.
After progressing via a second-placed finish in Group B and a play-off win over Estonia, and he intends to rewards those who got the country to their first major tournament in 10 years.
“We have other options but we will look at them for the next future, not now.” he explained. “The players who achieved the qualification deserve to come with us.”
The likes of James McClean, Anthony Pilkington, Wes Hoolahan and Anthony Stokes would relish the chance to be on the flight to Poland but Trapattoni said that unless injury strikes his squad, it will be basically as you are.
“We pay attention and in the next month we will see one or two,” he added. “But we have many players in every position and and can only think about them in case of injuries.”
“Two years, I saw (Sean) St Ledger and brought him in after one month. But this is different. This is a tournament.”
