FAI seek new U-21 manager as Givens steps aside

SOCCER:THE FAI hopes to have a new under-21 international manager in place by late summer following Don Givens' decision to step aside after more than a decade in the job and take on the role of the association's chief scout in Britain.

High performance director Wim Koevermans will decide on Givens’ replacement, with the association’s board expected to rubberstamp whatever decision the Dutchman makes. Givens’ role has been something of a bone of contention in recent years due to the team’s competitive record under the former Ireland international as well as his sometimes high profile falling-outs with players.

There was no indication yesterday of whether Koevermans will look to the League of Ireland for candidates in the hope of repeating the success achieved when Brian Kerr was appointed to run the Irish youth teams back in the late 90s, to other Irish candidates based in Britain or further afield. If it is to be another Irishman, however, the likes of Pat Fenlon or Stephen Kenny could emerge as strong candidates.

Whatever happens the association would presumably like to see an improvement in results from a team which often fell short of expectations in recent years. In each of the last two full length European Championship campaigns under Givens the team won just one and drew two of its eight games and in the current one, the Irish are again struggling with four points from seven matches, leaving the team three points adrift of Armenia at the foot of the group table.

It was back-to-back defeats by the Armenians that appeared to fatally undermine Givens’ position, with the FAI’s chief executive, John Delaney, observing that the 2-1 home loss three weeks ago had “disappointed everybody in Irish football, including myself.

“I spoke to Wim Koevermans about it,” he continued, “because he manages the underage set-up. I am not going to talk about anyone’s individual position but I have spoken to Wim, I have spoken to Don, we’ll have a chat and over a period of time we’ll announce whatever needs to be said in relation to the result and the future of who is going to manage the under-21s.”

Givens, nevertheless, insisted last night that the decision to change roles had been primarily his own. “It was my decision,” he said. “I know things were building anyway a little bit, there’s no getting away from that, but it was my decision. I spoke to the association and between us we came up with a change of role. I feel a little bit of disappointment in some ways with the last couple of performances. I know we hadn’t won games before that but I felt we deserved to win most of them. But the two performances against Armenia were very disappointing and prompted me to look at things and decide that maybe the time was right for a change of role.”

Prior to heading out last night to watch Aston Villa play Sunderland, he said that his new role will include both scouting personally and the overseeing of other people’s work for all of the Irish teams, including the women’s.

The former Luton and QPR striker had certainly served his time in the under-21 role. In just over 10 years at the helm, he had overseen some 73 games in charge, one more than half the number ever played by Ireland at that level. The Irish had won 16, drawn 16 and lost 40 of those played prior to his arrival, a record that improved to 30 won, 19 drawn and 24 lost since his appointment in February 2000.

Within those 10 years, there were a couple of impressive spells of form, most notably the 15 months or so after June 2003 when his side went 13 matches unbeaten and the bulk of 2006 when there was a run of a draw then six victories. However, the better results were often achieved in less important games and as Givens departs, the Irish have not won a competitive game in 11 attempts.

The manager routinely defended himself against such statistics on the basis that his role was to help bring through young players and contribute to their development, something that was certainly true. He fell out with a few along the way, however, with his old school, disciplinary attitude towards young players.

He twice stepped in to take charge of the senior national team between managers and on both occasions his forthright approach contributed to public spats with players. It might well be argued that both David Connolly and Stephen Ireland have shown something of a talent for rubbing others up the wrong way, but it’s certainly possible Giovanni Trapattoni would have been happier had the Manchester City midfielder been handled a little less robustly in the months leading up to his appointment.

Givens, remarkably enough, had a major role in selecting the Italian for the job, something which appeared to have more or less prohibited Trapattoni from shaking up the under-age ranks upon his arrival. Now that he has gone, the former striker has been given an attractive full-time alternative role within the set-up, something that supports the view that, whatever the record of his team, he is well liked by the people who matter in Abbotstown.

EURO 2012 DRAW

IRELAND’S EURO 2012 qualifying group will be one of four to have its fixtures sorted out by the drawing of lots in Tel Aviv today, with Uefa officials required to set out the schedule in the wake of the failure of the competing nations to reach an agreement on dates and games when they met in Moscow last week, writes Emmet Malone.

Uefa have already set out a standard list of games with fixtures between the various teams and today’s draw, which is due to get under way at about 12.30pm Irish time, will simply be to allocate places to each of the six nations in Group B in the prearranged grid.

The match dates are: 2010: September 3rd and 7th; October 8th and 12th; 2011: March 26th; June 4th; September 2nd and 6th; October 7th and 11th.