Trapattoni invokes spirit of Paris

Giovanni Trapattoni has called on his Republic of Ireland players to invoke the spirit of Paris when they take on Brazil at the Emirates Stadium tomorrow.

The Republic controversially missed out on a place at the World Cup finals following a play-off defeat to France, where Thierry Henry handled the ball in the lead up to Les Bleus’ winning goal.

So rather than preparing for a summer trip to South Africa, the Italian coach instead will turn his attentions towards the autumn qualifying campaign for the 2012 European Championships – and there can be no better preparation than a meeting with the South American giants.

However, Trapattoni’s plans have been disrupted somewhat by the late withdrawals because of injury of experienced pair Robbie Keane and Richard Dunne.

Nevertheless, the Republic coach expects his men to deliver.

“Until this morning, I had hoped to put out all of the players who were in the last game against France, but at the last minute we are now missing Robbie Keane and Richard Dunne,” said Trapattoni.

“However, I have had this experience before, where my team had to play without the famous senior men and we made a good game.

“We will start with the experienced players, because to put all the youngsters in against a team like this would be dangerous.

“It will be important for us to play with the same mentality and performance as we did against France and Italy,

“But we will need more attention, because Brazil are a great team – every player can score a goal, they have so many creative and technical players.

“We will prepare with 100 per cent attention and be compact, because we must not only press them, we can also not let such great players like Kaka have too much space.

“We need to be compact, every player must help his team-mate, be organised.

“If we play with the order like we did against Italy and France, then we can do it against Brazil.”

Hull’s Paul McShane looks set to come in alongside Sean St Ledger at centre-back, while Newcastle forward Leon Best will partner Kevin Doyle in attack.

The Wolves forward has impressed in the Barclays Premier League this season.

Trapattoni said: “Kevin Doyle is a good striker – he is intelligent and scores goals, working for the team.

“In these two years, he has grown a lot because he is playing against good defenders.

“He is a very clever player and I am sure the big teams will be conscious of him.”

Wigan youngster James McCarthy is expected to make his eagerly-anticipated debut at some stage tomorrow.

Trapattoni believes the 19-year-old – born in Scotland – has a bright future.

“McCarthy can play behind the strikers, sometimes left or sometimes on the right,” he said.

“James is a good young player, and in the future his manager can decide which position is better for him. At the moment, he is still searching for his position.

“In Italy it is the same as Ireland – where there is a young player with big potential, everybody has great expectation.

“Only Pele, Maradona and Cruyff were stars at 19 – everyone must grow and develop, with personality, slowly, slowly, step by step.”

Tomorrow’s game is the first of four warm-up matches ahead of the competitive qualifying action, when Ireland will prepare to face Russia, Slovakia, Macedonia, Armenia and Andorra.

Stoke midfielder Glenn Whelan maintains the squad are looking to put the disappointment of World Cup heartbreak behind them.

“We have to move on now and forget about it,” he said.

“Hopefully it will not come to that again, and we get out of the group the first time, rather than the play-offs.

“Of course, though, when the World Cup does come round and you see France there, that disappointment may come back again.”

Whelan added: “Nobody really gave us a chance of winning the group last time around, whereas now expectations have gone sky high.

“On paper, maybe people will say it is a bit easy, but there are no easy games in international football,

“We have some tough places to go, but we just have to worry about ourselves.”