‘Perfect’ Brady ponders role with Ireland

LIAM BRADY will decide over the next week whether or not it will be feasible for him to combine his job as Arsenal’s head of youth development with a role in the new Irish management set-up under Giovanni Trapattoni.

FAI chief executive John Delaney, who was with Brady in Salzburg on Wednesday for discussions with Trapattoni, described the meeting as a productive one and reiterated that both the FAI and the new manager are keen to have Brady on board.

“The FAI and Giovanni would love him to come,” said Delaney, “but Liam has got to look at whether he can do both roles. Liam is a professional and wants to be sure that if he does take it on that he would be able to continue with his job with Arsenal. So he’s going to think about that for a little while, talk to Arsenal about it and see if he can accommodate both roles. I don’t want to talk publicly about what his role (with Ireland) would be but certainly it was clarified over the day or two we were out there. I think he’s the perfect fit for the role we spoke about. He also has a very good relationship on a personal basis with (Marco) Tardelli. They’re very good friends. And of course he played under Giovanni, who rang Liam when he first got the approach — so I think there’s a lot there that would work very well. So I’m hopeful but it is Liam’s decision to make.”

Tardelli, Trapattoni’s assistant, takes up his Irish duties next weekend when he is expected to watch Irish players in action in England. Tardelli will then be in Galway for Ireland’s U-21 game against Montenegro in Terryland Park on March 25 and is also likely to take in the friendly between Northern Ireland and the Republic’s World Cup group opponents, Georgia, in Belfast the following day.

Delaney said that, in his discussions with Trapattoni in Salzburg, he was impressed by the new manager’s attention to detail.

“He is very set on trying to organise things like flight times, eating times and training times. They seem to be very important to him. Particularly, he was concerned about what time we leave Georgia for Montenegro (for the back-to-back World Cup games in September). It’s a three-and-a-half hour flight down, there’s a time difference and I think they will train that afternoon. Where it’s practical he likes to have training after a flight so you might see more sessions at 6pm than you have in the past.”

Stating that the Italian is “very clued in”, Delaney said that the new manager has already studied DVDs of all Ireland’s games over the past two years.

“He was up to speed on those. He gave them a real going over. And now he wants DVDs of recent matches played by the teams in our group.”

Delaney also revealed that Trapattoni, using his old contacts at Benfica, is keen to arrange two games against local sides during Ireland’s training camp in Portugal in May. Ireland will follow that trip with back-to-back friendlies against Serbia and Colombia, meaning that the new manager will have a full fortnight with the squad when he takes charge of them for the first time.