‘OLD MAN’ AIDEN McGeady admits he has never been fully confident about his place in the Republic of Ireland team.
The winger will win his 60th cap if selected to face the Faroe Islands in Friday’s World Cup qualifier and in a squad filling up with younger talent, McGeady has now become one of the elder statesmen at the age of 27.
A knee injury ruled him out of the most recent qualifiers against Sweden and Austria but despite that absence, he remained in manager Giovanni Trapattoni’s thoughts and slotted straight back in to his usual wide role against England last week.
Of the side which opened Ireland’s Euro 2012 campaign, McGeady was one of only five players to start in Wembley as well. That change and evolution points to a bright future, he says.
“I’ve probably never been sure that I was going to play every single game,” McGeady revealed. “We’ll see what happens.
“Obviously if I get the chance to play and the manager thinks I’m worthy of playing, that’s fine. If he chooses to play someone else, what can you do?”
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He added: “[Trapattoni] has made some changes himself, some players have stepped down, some players have retired. That’s what football is. The backbone of teams change from the time to time.
“Managers don’t want to change too frequently but I think now we’ve got a good mix of youth and experience and I think it bodes well for the future.”
Ireland go into Friday night’s game in high spirits, riding the momentum of that creditable 1-1 draw against England as well as a 4-0 win against Georgia at the weekend.
But with the race for Group C’s runner-up spot still very much in the balance, bagging three valuable points against the struggling Faroes is a must.
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“This is the main one now,” McGeady insists. “We have to get three points on Friday.
“There’s no point in playing well in the two warm-up games before it and then not getting a result on Friday. That’s the one that will be remembered.
“You don’t want to disrespect the Faroes. It was a tough game when we played there, Sweden had a tough game there as well. First of all you just want to win. If you can get some goals that would be nice but first and foremost, it’s just trying to get the three points because it won’t be easy.
“These guys will play football and can make it very difficult for you. The first half for us away there was difficult. We played well and got some goals in the second but the pressure’s obviously going to be on us on Friday.”
He added: “Of course you have to be patient. You don’t want to be getting ahead of yourself after 15 minutes and the crowd expecting you to be two or three goals up. It could take until the 85th minute to get a goal — who knows?”
