Whelan happy to be Trap’s working class hero

Glenn Whelan has seen the pictures of canines painted green, white and gold.

He has heard all about the bunting draped around his native Clondalkin and his own dad is one of those fans travelling to Poland in a camper van.

There are few airs and graces to Whelan on the pitch — “I’m a bit of a dog,” he admits — and the same can be said away from it. If he wasn’t playing in this tournament, he insists, he would be one of those people going mad with the spray paint and flags back home.

If this were four years ago, he probably would have been. Back then his summers — and every international break — looked to be his to do with as he pleased for years to come. At 24, his international career had lain dormant ever since he left his U21 days behind.

Skip from there to here and Whelan stands on the brink of a career high. He is a central figure — literally — in Giovanni Trapattoni’s Irish side and he has little hesitation in responding when asked what the Italian has done for him as a footballer.

“Thirty-eight caps,” he says, shaving one off his actual collection. “He was the only manager who believed in me to come into international football. There were one or two before him who I thought I might have had a squeak to get into a couple of squads but it never happened. I’m grateful for what he has done for me. If he didn’t come along I quite possibly might not be sitting here today.

“It’s great for a manager... to have played me in as many games as he has done. I’d like to think I have repaid him by my performances and by what I’ve done. But I’ll never forget what he has done for me. He has probably been the best manager I could have hoped for to come into the Ireland team.”

Trapattoni famously described Whelan as his ”Gattuso” early on in his time as Ireland manager but Whelan’s status as a certain starter in the Irish XI hasn’t always gone unquestioned by those who follow the team in either a professional or a personal capacity.

Media and supporters alike continue to pine for the days when Roy Keane or even Steven Reid patrolled the centre circle in a green shirt but there is recognition, too, that there have been times when Whelan and Keith Andrews have been undone by sheer weight of numbers as Ireland stick to a 4-4-2 system in a world where five midfielders is the norm.

“There are a lot of teams we’ve played against and I don’t think we’ve always gone 4-4-2. Sometimes we’ve played against five and we’ve dealt okay with it and other times we’ve been overran. But the manager picks the team. He knows the players and he knows the roles that people can do.”

The memory of Ireland’s midfielders chasing Russian shadows at Lansdowne Road in Aug of 2010 remains painfully clear but Slovakia and Armenia served up performances which, while not quite so haunting, threatened to be just as damaging to the country’s hopes of reaching the finals.

Croatia, too, made Ireland look frighteningly pedestrian when the sides met in a Dubllin friendly late last year and, in Luka Modric, Darjo Srna and Ivan Rakitic, tomorrow’s opponents possess an attacking arsenal that could well shell Ireland into an early submission.

The slight but skilful Tottenham player carries a disproportionate amount of expectation on his slim shoulders this month but Adam Begovic pointed out after Ireland’s friendly against Bosnia-Herzegovina last month that his Stoke teammate has a tendency to do well against Modric.

“I’ve done okay,” says Whelan. “We beat [Tottenham] at our place this year and they scored a last-minute equaliser at their place. No, for me personally, you want to play against these players and pit yourself against them. It’s not just Modric, they’ve got other players as well. I can’t get any more excited.

“He’s one of them that if you give him time and space he’ll hurt you. If you don’t get tight and he can see a pass, he’ll pick that pass out. It’s a goal-scoring opportunity with the passes he can see. When we played them in a friendly he played a different role to the way he played for Spurs so it’s something we’ll have to deal with.”

They’ll have to deal with it, and everything else Croatia throw at them, quickly. The World Cup still maintains a tendency to throw the odd minnow into the bowl but the Euro waters are inhabited by big fish and slow starts are more often than not fatal.

Whelan takes the point but his focus is on the end point and by end point he means the final itself. “Why not?” he asks. “Anything can happen. You look at Greece a few years ago. I’m sure if there was a Greece player who said, ‘let’s go to the end’, people would be laughing at them. But why not?”

Greece’s shock success in that 2004 campaign is a subject close to Trapattoni’s heart. The Italian mentioned it in his very first press conference as Ireland manager back in 2008 and his side’s status as rank outsiders, allied to the difficulty in breaking them down, has prompted comparisons from all corners of Europe in the build-up.

“It’s something that’s been thrown around because of the underdog tag that we seem to always have. Obviously Greece — who’d ever expect them to win a European Championships? So why not us?

“We’re not silly. No one is really giving us a chance and if it comes off it is going to be one of the biggest upsets. But you set your targets high and see what you can achieve.”

Greece were an 80-1 shot when they triumphed in Portugal. And Ireland?

“80-1? We’ll take that,” says Whelan with a smile. “We’ll take 81-1 just so it’s a little bit better.”