O’Shea: Ireland and Italy won’t be quick on the draw

IN THE entirely appropriate setting of Mick Wallace’s Italian eaterie in central Dublin, John O’Shea briefly considers the popular conspiratorial image of Giovanni Trapattoni and Marcello Lippi sitting down to carve up the result of Saturday’s meeting of Ireland and Italy – and then smashes it right out of sight.

“The two managers have a deal done beforehand over a glass of wine?” he laughs. “No, I don’t think so. If he (Trapattoni) has a chance of winning this group, he’ll be mad for it.”

The vast majority of football-watchers might have the Italians down as cast-iron certainties to win World Cup qualifying Group 8 but the Manchester United and Ireland defender is not one of them.

“Sure, Italy only need a point and they know how to get a result when they need one,” he says. “But, look, for us, it’s Italy at home, and we have to use it as a huge, huge game to show where we’ve come in the group, why we’ve been undefeated and to hold onto that chance of first place. We can make Italy a bit nervous (in their final game against Cyprus), although we will still have to do a job against Montenegro. If we got a result against Italy it would give everyone a huge boost.”

Nor does O’Shea accept that, for their part, the Italians will come to Dublin content to play for the solitary point required to secure their passage to South Africa.

“I think they’ll come out to win it with the players they have,” he insists. “I don’t think they can play any other way really, with the creativity and attacking options they have.”

But, not surprisingly, the Italian approach is of much less concern to the Waterford man than how Ireland will deal with the challenge of overcoming the world champions. And, for O’Shea, speaking at the announcement of the results of Carlsberg’s ‘Here we go again’ fan poll, said the key to Irish success on the night will be in playing without fear and really taking the game to their opponents, ideally creating a “deafening noise” at Croke Park by getting the all-important first goal.

“We need to be more brave attacking-wise,” he says, “maybe committing more men forward at certain stages and being more clinical. I don’t think we’re going to win many games by a lot of goals. That’s sort of been proven in this group – when we’ve won games, it’s been by the odd goal. Of course, you’re playing Italy and you’ll take any sort of win: if they batter us for 89 minutes and we get a corner and grab a goal – there’s lot of ways you can go about it. Or keep a clean sheet for as long as you can and hope that one of the lads who can produce a bit of magic, does, and we get the win we need.”

However it comes to pass, O’Shea believes that Ireland can’t afford any more self-inflicted wounds in the group, so close to the finishing line.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve been too cautious, to be honest, it’s more that we’ve been letting ourselves down a bit in terms of dominating games and then maybe taking our foot of the pedal when we thought we were comfortable. But that’s international football for you, whether you’re at home or away from home: if you let a team get on top of you for a minute it’s hard to just change it back again quickly. Definitely, in a few games we’ve let ourselves slip a bit in that sense.”

Turning to club matters, O’Shea says that Alex Ferguson, “always very inquisitive”, has asked him some general questions about Giovanni Trapattoni – “what type of man he is, wanting to know about training and things like that”. And, perhaps not surprisingly, given their hugely successful management portfolios, the players see some strong similarities between the Italian and the Scot.

“Yeah, the determination,” he says. “And the small details. It’s the small details that define moments in matches that have hurt them. The two of them always seem to remember those moments no matter how successful they’ve been. And that seems to be a key to their success: they remember the times when they’ve lost games and that’s driven them on.”

At the much more tender age of 28, O’Shea also has plenty to look back on, having amassed 56 caps for his country and recently hit the 350-game mark for Manchester United, a milestone he crowned with a goal against Stoke City.

“When I started out at United, you hoped to just get in somewhere near or around the first-team squad,” he reflects. “Then you hope that, when you do get a chance, you take it. The first year – when we won the league in 2002/3 – that was a huge, huge year for me. And ever since then I’ve played 30 or 40 games a season. But I still feel I’m improving with the experience of getting to Champions League finals, winning Premierships, being part of a such a successful squad and playing with the players I’ve been lucky enough to play with. I’ve been very fortunate and I’m very proud of getting to that 350 mark.”

Can he go on as long as the likes of Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs at a club where he says he would be happy to see out his whole career?

“Yeah, touch wood,” he smiles. “That’s the aim. But there’s a lot of hard work goes into achieving what those lads have achieved. If I can get anywhere near what they’ve achieved I’ll be very happy.”