Whelan: I don’t want this to stop

FOR anyone inclined to dismiss the significance of an end-of-season training camp, a word with Glenn Whelan should give them cause to reconsider.

A mainstay of the Trapattoni era, the Dubliner came relatively late to international football when the Italian summoned him to his inaugural training camp in Portugal two years ago.

“I think it was different for me coming in to the squad because while it might not have been my only chance it was a little make-or-break for me,” the 26-year-old reflects. “I had to try and take this opportunity while I could.

“Whereas when you’re 18 or 19 you still have a lot of years left ahead of you to do that. But I think it was easier for me because I was playing week in week out for Stoke and we’d just got promoted to the Premier League, so I was on a high. Getting the call from the Irish camp gave me a great big buzz and it’s just gone from there really. I don’t want this to stop, I just want to keep playing.”

If Trapattoni has his way, it looks like Whelan – who earns his 20th cap tonight against Algeria – will do exactly that. And it’s clear that there’s a bit of a mutual appreciation thing going on between manager and player.

“He’s come in and made us hard to beat,” says Whelan. “We don’t concede many goals. And if you don’t concede many goals you’re not going to be losing so many games, which gives you a chance of winning games. So that helped us do really well in the qualifying campaign for the World Cup.

“Obviously we got robbed maybe in the last few minutes but I don’t think many people would have given us a chance 12 or 18 months beforehand to do what we did. We came on a lot during that time and hopefully we can we can continue that.”

Whelan is one of those who, try as he might, still finds it hard to forget Paris. “It’s still hard to take,” he tells the Soccer Republic website.

“It’s a lot harder with the World Cup only around the corner. When that starts and you see a game that France are involved in, you’ll be looking thinking it could have been us. I’ll watch them and, fingers crossed, hope they get beaten (laughs). Nah, I’ve come up against some French players in the Premier League, but there’s no hard feelings – if it was the other way around, and one of our players handled the ball, we’d be more than happy to go to the World Cup.”

“But I don’t want to keep going on about it because there’s nothing we can do about it now. We just have to get on with it. That’s the case, that’s why I’m here this week, to move on.”

Moving on means looking to the European Championship qualification campaign and something of a voyage into the unknown as far as the nature of some of the opposition is concerned.

“I think it’s easier when you play against the top nations because you know most of their players, you know the big names,” Whelan opines. “Armenia, for example, wouldn’t have many star players around Europe that we’d know of but then it’s up to our coaching staff, they do their homework and preparation. Then we just go out on the pitch and do our stuff.

“People have said they’re happy with the group on paper but we have to go to some tough places. Visiting Russia isn’t going to be easy and the same with Slovakia. I think it’s tough but if we work hard and do as well as we know we can, it’s a group we can get out of.”

“After the disappointment of getting second and the play-offs last time, it’s something that we don’t want to happen again. Getting top spot and not having to go through the play-offs is a big aim for us but we’ll just be doing our best to win every game and move on from there.”