McCarthy for Macedonia as Trapattoni clarifies position

FINALLY, some clarity in the James McCarthy affair, with Giovanni Trapattoni confirming that he will include the Wigan man in the squad for next month’s European Championship qualifier against Macedonia and the friendly game against Uruguay.

It might be the case that McCarthy is much more likely to feature in the latter than the former, given that he missed out on Tuesday night’s warmer-upper against Wales, but at least there is now some prospect of a distracting and dispiriting saga finally drawing to a close. It took a lengthy circumnavigation of the subject before the Ireland manager actually nailed his colours to the mast at a lively press conference in Dublin yesterday.

Clearly vexed by repeated questioning about the player, Trapattoni initially left the impression that the Glasgow-born McCarthy would have to move first to break the impasse by unequivocally nailing the green, rather than the blue, colour to his own mast.

“James knows our position,” said

Trapattoni. “James knows we like him. He is 20-years-old and I was a player, Marco (Tardelli) was a player. At 21, we were a man. We take decisions. I don’t wait for my agent to tell me what to do. He can decide freely, I like Scotland or I like Ireland. He has the possibility. That is it. He knows our mind. Yesterday I read in onenewspaper, the headline, ‘James Where Is Your Home?’ He can decide, he has the opportunity, it’s not the manager, it’s his heart. The manager changes: Giovanni today,another tomorrow.”

Trapattoni said he feels no need to either talk toor see the player in action between now and next month, arguing Tardelli has seen him four times recently and the management team knows what he has to offer.

But, with all the signals up to that point in the press conference suggesting McCarthy was going to be left in cold storage, Trapattoni then surprised his audience by stating clearly that, yes, he would call the player into his next squad. “Sure, Macedonia. If he’s fit, OK. We call him but then it’s his decision,” said the manager.

The encouraging word from the player’s camp is that he has not wavered in his commitment to Ireland and that his withdrawal from the panel for the Wales game was all about notover-extending himself after only recently returning to action for Wigan following a long injury lay-off.

Meanwhile, Trapattoni also took the opportunity yesterday to dismiss the notion that there has been a breakdown in communication with Robbie Keane over the manager’s well-publicised remarks that, prior to his move to West Ham, the captain’s place would be under threat if he didn’t start playing regularly.

“I spoke with Robbie Keane,” he said. “You write another situation, not what I clarify with him. It’s different. What you wrote and what I speak with the players is very different. I had a conversation with Keane. There is no confusion.”

In truth, a lot still gets lost in translation — or, more accurately, for want of a translation from broken English — at a Giovanni Trapattoni press conference.