Whelan likely to captain Ireland against Saudis

WITH the evolution of the Irish youth team nearing completion, Glenn Whelan just wants the games of this 14th World U20 Championship to begin.

Manager Gerry Smith says he remains undecided on just who will captain the team with the opening match with Saudi Arabia just over 24 hours away.

But, having skippered the side in their two most recent games against Italy and Paraguay, Manchester City midfielder-cum-defender Whelan is the likely lad to wear the armband, despite the fact he’s a year younger than most of his team-mates. “It’s gone well and we’ve trained hard,” said Whelan. “Everyone is just keen to get the games going and get into it.”

Whelan captains the current U19s from central midfield and is just happy to be making a major contribution with the under-20s, never mind being given the added responsibility of leading the team, even if it does mean playing right-back.

“Like any player will tell you, I don’t really care where I play once I’m in the team,” said the Clondalkin prospect. “I hadn’t really played right-back before until I did well there in a training game over the summer and that’s why I was thrown back in.” With Darren Potter and the emerging David Bell the likely central midfield partnership, full-back seems to be the chief option to Whelan remaining in the starting eleven.

“Gerry knows now that I can do a job for him there so it’s now up to him to pick the team and hopefully I’m in there.” All indications are that Whelan will indeed be in the team and most probably be its captain as well.

“I was a bit surprised that I was made captain for the last two games, as I am a year younger,” Whelan admitted. “But I was naturally happy to be captain and I hope that I can keep it.

“I don’t think it’s vitally important who the captain is as all the lads have to be their own captains. It’s not just about one person; it’s about the whole team. I’d love to be captain but I’m sure the other 19 lads would love to be as well.”

A week’s training and acclimatisation behind them the focus is now fully on the first major obstacle in getting out of Group E, namely the relatively unknown quantity that is Saudi Arabia.

“They have decent players throughout the team,” said Smith, who had the Saudis watched in an impressive 2-0 friendly win over Argentina at the weekend.

“They are strong, mobile and have good movement. They are useful, there is no doubt about that.” The Saudis are quietly confident of causing a stir, though their Argentinian coach, Daniel Romeo, a former assistant boss of the Swiss senior side, reads little into that albeit encouraging win over his countrymen.

“Beating Argentina was a confidence builder, but we shouldn’t get carried away,” said Romeo.

Another injury scare abated for Smith yesterday with the news that an X-ray revealed that striker Stephen

Elliott has slight tendon inflammation and no fracture to his right foot and thus should be fit to play tomorrow along with key midfielder, Darren Potter, who is over an ankle ligament strain.