Time is right to give new blood a run, says Mick
Ireland boss Trapattoni has resisted calling up his old guard of Shay Given, Richard Dunne, Damien Duff and captain Robbie Keane for the friendly with Serbia on August 15 as he looks to the future after the disappointment of Euro 2012.
McCarthy found himself in a similar situation after his side failed to qualify in his first campaign in charge, losing in a play-off with Belgium for the 1998 World Cup in France.
McCarthy bravely bit the bullet and duly capped six debutants in his next match, a friendly in Olomouc against the Czech Republic in March 1998.
“Far be it from me to tell him what to do,” said McCarthy on giving Trapattoni any advice after Poland. “He’s far more experienced and successful throughout his career.
“I’ve had this, not coming back from a Championship, but when I went to Olomuc and I gave six new caps. It was Robbie (Keane), Duffer (Damien Duff), Kevin Kilbane, Ian Harte, Mark Kinsella and Alan Maybury.
“I did it and people said ‘why did you do it?’ and I said, ‘sod it, it needed to be changed, it needed to be freshened up’. It worked for me, thankfully.
“You’ve got to do it. You can’t drip feed them (in) like you’ve got 40 games a season. You’ve got one friendly before you are back into football.
“If Giovanni decides that he wants to play some of the younger one’s and might feel that they can get something out of it. The only way he can get to see them play in international football is put them in the team.
“Then it’s open season. You put them in and you get one side saying he shouldn’t have done that, he should have kept the older one’s who got them qualified, and you’ll get the other one’s. But you make your own decision and to hell with everyone else and what they say.
“Six months ago when we qualified, everybody thought he was fantastic and the way he did it based on a defensive strategy. Did I see somewhere that he said he might change how we play now? But it was a tough group.”
While his analysis of Euro 2012 was that he never expected Ireland to progress from the group, McCarthy believes the team should have done better.
“I said before it that we were the fourth-best team in our group and as it turned out the two finalists came from our group, so it was always going to be a really hard task for them.
“I didn’t expect anything of us to qualify for the next stage. The other teams were really good. The players were disappointed with how they played and how they did and I don’t think we did ourselves justice at all, to be honest. But I’m not saying anything that anybody else would say.”
And in keeping with the general consensus, Ireland’s best hope of qualifying for World Cup 2014 in Brazil will be again through the play-offs.
“Germany will win the group,” said McCarthy. “If anybody thinks that’s me being defeatist, then good luck to them. I’m a pragmatist. Even getting into a play-off will mean finishing above Austria and Sweden, the latter the second favourites in the group.
“I didn’t see all the games (at Euro 2012), but they (Sweden) were a decent side. They always are and are hard to beat. And in Ibrahimovic, they’ve got that one bit of magic. They’re always a grafting team, they’re not a fancy team. They have some good players but they’ve got that Scandinavian toughness about them.”
McCarthy wouldn’t be drawn on a return to manage Ireland down the road.
“Really, considering everything that’s been going on with Giovanni through the European championships….I want to be at a club, that’s where I want to be.”
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