Given: It’s going to be ‘fighting Irish’

Two days had passed since Ireland’s defeat to Croatia by the time Shay Given spoke to the media, and two more had yet to go before the second Group C game against Spain, but the goalkeeper’s gaze is fixed in just one direction.

The message was clear: Croatia is over. It’s done with. It’s time to move on, an approach shared by Ireland’s assistant manager, Marco Tardelli, and a number of Given’s colleagues on the playing staff.

“It wasn’t like us at all nor were the goals we conceded. Two were from corners and the other one was from a cross and that’s not normally like us. We’re usually more solid than that, so as a group of players we were disappointed in the goals. We were all flat after the game. We’re still talking about it now, but we can’t change it.

“We can’t change the goals or what’s happened but the good thing about football is that you’ve always got another game to come along and in the Euros they come quite fast.

“They don’t come any bigger than the world champions. It’s a huge game and we have to get something from it or we’re going to be going home early. It’s a massive game for everyone.”

The players may wish to move on but the autopsy continues elsewhere and Given was, predictably, quizzed further about the goals that cast Ireland adrift in Group C. Mario Mandukic’s pair of headers in particular.

Given’s inability to keep out Mandukic’s opening effort was criticised in some quarters given the less-than-powerful connection made by the Croatian forward but he explained yesterday that there were players obscuring his view and insisted it had nothing to do with any lingering effects from his recent knee problem.

He has done more than enough in 123 appearances for his country to earn the benefit of the doubt there and it must be said too that he has called himself on occasion in the past. He did so again yesterday when rueing his efforts during the penalty shoot-out against Spain in the 2002 World Cup.

Whatever about Croatia, who were deserving winners in Poznan, that loss to the Spanish in Suwon sticks in the throat even more considering Ireland really should have won but Given conceded yesterday that there are few comparisons to be made between the side Ireland faced ten years ago and the one they will encounter in Gdansk.

In the years since, Spain have transformed themselves from perennial tournament totterers to terrors and all but reinvented aspects of the game itself with Vicente del Bosque sending out a side to face Italy last Sunday with six midfielders and no strikers.

Given wasn’t the only one who found that “a bit of a strange one” but Giovanni Trapattoni has already said that he expects to see Fernando Torres in the eleven tomorrow evening.”

“I’ve done okay against him,” said Given of Torres. “He scored against me at Villa Park this season, his first Premier League goal for a long time. He’s a great player. I know he’s come in for a lot of criticism since he’s gone to Chelsea because he didn’t find his feet straight away, but he’s getting there, getting back to where he was in his prime at Liverpool.

“But we’ve got to stop the whole team. You don’t concentrate on one of their players. They’re very good on the ball. They’re a fantastic team and if you give them time and space on the ball they’re going to pick you off. So we know what’s coming, we’ve just got to try and combat that. We saw England beat Spain 1-0 a few months ago at Wembley, so we can take things from that and how they played and hopefully we can do something similar.”

Hard work and a return to the defensive stubborness that constructed a 14-game unbeaten run before Sunday are the least expected of Ireland as they face ‘La Roja’ but the side’s inability to construct meaningful attacking operations for so much of the game in Poznan offers even further cause for concern.

Yet, Given insisted Ireland can hurt Spain. He pointed to Spain’s lack of height and Ireland’s liking for set-pieces as a possible avenue towards profit and, while he pinpointed England’s win in London as a pathway to follow, it is Ireland’s heroics in Paris in October of 2009 that may offer a more relevant blueprint.

“Perhaps,” said the man from Donegal. “There are players on our bus who’ve been there before and our backs are against the wall a little bit and we’ve got to come out fighting.”