Ryan Giggs ready to face off with old friend Roy Keane again

By Liam Mackey

The only time Ryan Giggs came up against Ireland as a player, he was reduced to playing a bit part in history.

It was the landmark day in March 2007 when Croke Park opened its doors to soccer and a Stephen Ireland goal secured a 1-0 victory for the home side in a Euro 2008 qualifier. Gareth Bale, still in his teens at the time, was making only his fifth appearance for Wales while a 20-year-old Joe Ledley also featured in John Toshack’s team.

Those two are the only players from that day who are still part of the Welsh squad in 2018 while, for Giggs, there will be a different kind of history being made this evening in Cardiff when, after three friendlies on the road, he manages the national team for the first time on home soil.

“It’s a proud moment for me and I’m very excited,” he said at his pre-match press conference in the Cardiff City Stadium. “But I also recognise it’s a tough game. The Republic have not been beaten in their last six competitive away games so we know what we’re up against. A team that’s going to work hard and make it difficult for us. But, yeah, proud moment for me and I can’t wait for the game to come.”

He did concede, however, that he would be more nervous as a gaffer in the dugout than he ever was as a player running down the wing.

“Without a shadow of a doubt. I never really got nervous of a player. As a manager it’s different, there are a lot of things going through your mind but the preparations have been good and everyone’s fit.”

Including the aforementioned Bale, with Giggs maintaining that the Welsh galactico should already have the Puskas award all sewn up for his sensational goal for Real Madrid in the Champions League final against Liverpool.

“I can’t believe any other goals have been nominated,” he said with a smile. “To do it in any other game it would be a contender but to do it in the Champions League final was amazing. There’s only one winner for me. We were in LA in the meeting room watching it as a squad and as a staff and it was one of those moments where there’s that noise that you make when you see something unbelievable. It was just, like, wow. And everyone was clapping. Even talking about it now, you get goosebumps.”

The new manager is hoping for more of the same tonight.

“A tap-in from him would do for me,” Giggs shot back. “But, yeah, he’s a fantastic player who can produce magic moments like that.”

Giggs’ upbeat mood wasn’t in the slightest bit dented when a visiting journalist began his contribution to the press conference by reminding him that Harry Arter had left the Irish camp “after a falling out with your old teammate Roy Keane…”

At which point Giggs interrupted in a tone of mock disbelief. “Nooooo, that doesn’t happen, I don’t believe it.”

Once the laughter in the room had died down, the Manchester United legend went on: “I don’t know (about the situation), I’m not on the inside. All I can say about Keaney is he was a brilliant team-mate and I enjoyed my time with him and Martin at the World Cup. Great company. All I know is Roy as a person and I get on with him really well and I’m looking forward to seeing him. I know for a fact he enjoys working with Martin but I think eventually he’ll want to get back into club management. He’s a football man.”

Asked if he had ever had a falling out with Keane at Old Trafford, Giggs replied: “I don’t think I ever did. You say falling out — it’s flying into tackles in training and, yeah, you fall out but then in the dressing room you’re laughing and joking about it. I was part of a team that would kick lumps out of each other during the week. They wouldn’t go over the top but they wanted to win those small-sided games in training before the Saturday game. Old v young. British against foreigners. There was always an edge to it. Because you wanted to win.”

Giggs said he wants to cultivate a similar competitive edge in his Welsh team, as well as striking a balance between youth and experience and between solid organisation and freedom of expression.

“Just like me as a player,” he said. “I wanted to take players on, I wanted to excite the fans and get them off their feet but also I knew that I had to do the other side as well.”

Meanwhile, Ashley Williams revealed that he had thought of texting a ‘get well soon’ message to his stricken Stoke teammate James McClean but decided to leave it until after tonight’s game. “He’s a really good guy and a good player,” he said. “He’s started well at Stoke and he’s an important player for Ireland.”

Williams confessed that a win tonight would not heal the wounds of that World Cup qualification defeat to Ireland last October, when McClean struck the killer blow in tonight’s venue.

“It lasted a while, it was a bad one and we were all hurting a lot but you get over it,” he said. “I don’t think if we win it will erase that pain of that night. It’d be nice to win but not to try and put that right. We missed the World Cup and we can’t put that right now. There’s no grudge. We’re professionals. There’s a lot of reasons why we want to win this game. A lot of people want to impress the manager. It’s for us to try and block that memory out and focus on the game itself.”