Given relaxed ahead of Euro 2012
Credit: Extratime Team (ETPhotos)
Out of the 386 players currently preparing for this summer’s European Championships, only Spain’s Iker Casillas has more international caps than Ireland shot stopper Shay Given. With 121 caps currently to his name, Given is the Republic’s most capped player and as he explained to Extratime.ie, he and his team mates won’t fear anybody in Poland/Ukraine.
Giovanni Trappatoni’s men play their final warm-up game on home soil this Saturday as they take on Bosnia at Lansdowne Road and Given is under no illusions that the friendly and the next few weeks will be crucial as Ireland prepare for their first major tournament in ten years.
“It would be great to have a full house; it’s our last game before we leave for our European adventures and it’s important we do have a good game before the tournament and we get a good result. It’s important as well for a few of the Championship lads who haven’t played in a couple of weeks in order to get their match fitness and sharpness up to scratch. We want to be at the peak of our fitness and sharpness so these weeks are vital as we all know.”
The 36 year old is coming off the back of a disappointing season with Aston Villa but Given admits his focus is now on fully on the task in hand.
“It was a frustrating season, we were poor in the Premier League but on a personal level, I was happy with my own performances but ideally we would have liked to have been higher up the table and taken the pressure of us as it was building every week with our results.”
The Aston Villa goal minder played in all four of Ireland’s games in South Korea/Japan when we last qualified for a major tournament but claims he is more relaxed ahead of June then he was before 2002 despite being one of the experienced members of the squad.
“I'm more relaxed probably to be honest if anything as it could be my last one, who knows, it’s been a long ten years but you just never know when we’ll next qualify. I’m just going to try and go there and enjoy it and hopefully use my experience to help some of the younger lads.”
The Boys in Green begin their campaign against Croatia on June 10th and much has been made of the Ireland’s “group of death” but the Lifford born ‘keeper knows that the opening game will be just as tough as the other two.
"It’s important that we get off to a good start but Croatia will be thinking along the same lines and we know how tough it’s going to be but our focus is on the Croatian game and we’ll worry about Spain and Italy after that. We all know how important it is to hit the ground running. However we don’t fear playing Spain, Italy or even Croatia. The manager has installed a great belief in us that we can play against any team and we have proven in the last couple of years especially that we can compete with the best.”
Following the Bosnia game, Ireland will fly to Montecatini, Italy where they will spend six days before travelling to Budapest to take on Hungary in their final warm-up game ahead of the tournament.
“Spain are beatable, we can get a result against them. It’s eleven players against eleven players, they’re not from a different universe. If we’re set up probably and if everyone’s on top of their game then we can get a result but then on the other side of the coin we know they can rip teams apart.”
“We want to try and go there and win it and we don’t want to be in there to make up the numbers. You have to be in it to win it and we’re in it so why not.”
Carlsberg ambassador Shay Given is calling on fans to Join the Green Army and show their support for the Irish team at UEFA Euro 2012. Thousands of fans who uploaded their pictures to the Carlsberg Ireland Football Facebook page (www.facebook.com/
