No room for error in Armenia, warns O’Shea

A GLITTERING club career collecting trophies like a schoolboy gathers stamps breeds high standards in a man so it comes as no surprise that John O’Shea harbours great expectations as Ireland kick another campaign off.

Never mind that Spain scraped a 2-1 win in Armenia on their way to success in South Africa. Or that Belgium fell to a defeat by the same margin in Yerevan. For O’Shea, it is a case of win or bust. A draw simply won’t do.

“No, not at all, especially with us playing Andorra the following game. You don’t want to look too far ahead but that’s a great chance for us to get six points from two games. You’re going into the October games then full of confidence. But if we don’t get our minds right from the start we’ll be in for a hell of a shock because these so-called lesser teams have a habit of making us look very stupid.”

What is surprising is O’Shea’s belief that it is Ireland’s away form that is the area most in need of attention as the long and probably winding road to Poland and the Ukraine yawns up ahead.

After all, Giovanni Trapattoni’s side navigated Mainz, Podgorica, Bari, Sofia and Nicosia unbeaten in their bid to qualify for this year’s World Cup and finished the group winning the same number of points, nine, on their travels as at home.

“Our home form, we know we can beat anyone at home. Once we can stick to being unbeaten at home and winning the majority of those games it’s going to come down to the away games and winning some.

“The last campaign, drawing against Bulgaria, I know we may have been lucky to go ahead and they missed a couple of chances but we should have been able to see that one out and pick up the three points.

“Italy down to 10 men as well, I know we got the draw but maybe that was another three points gone there. It’s making sure we capitalise on good situations, that’s definitely the key to automatic qualification.”

Though he waves aside the relevance of his club career in an Irish context, O’Shea has clearly been infected by the incessant hunger for success that has enveloped him in England’s north-west.

Disappointment has, unfortunately, been a more regular bedfellow with his country for whom he made his senior bow some months before the 2002 World Cup but not in time to travel to that summer’s festivities in Asia.

Four major championship campaigns have come and gone since then and that itch has yet to be scratched, something which he is acutely aware of as he approaches his 30th birthday.

“Huge disappointment. There’s major jealously with all the lads in the team who have been to a major tournament. You feel that you’ve missed out on reaching the pinnacle of where international football is.”

His attempts to break that duck took a significant toll last November when he bumped into Shay Given in the ill-fate play-off in Paris and suffered a thigh injury which kept him sidelined for six months.

You wonder will there ever be a time when he might just follow the lead of Paul Scholes and Wes Brown, both of whom opted out of the international game in order to elongate and maximise their Old Trafford careers.

“I don’t see it ever being a problem for me,” he says, “purely because I’ll always be of the persuasion... well, at the moment I’m saying this... no, I would be very confident of Ireland retiring me rather than me retiring Ireland.”

Which is just as well. Ireland’s pool is considerably smaller than that of England’s and the loss of such key starters as Damien Duff and Keith Andrews for the opener this week emphasises the premium on men like O’Shea.

Fit and back on active duty after the pain of Paris, he returns to an Irish squad that carries the elevated hopes of a nation after the glimpse of the promised land that was so cruelly whisked away by Thierry Henry. “The expectations are the same,” he insists. “We want to get to the tournament. We want to qualify for the next major tournament all the time. We should be getting to the major tournaments.’’