Roy Keane may hoover up most of the attention but hard as it may be to believe, he is not the only member of Martin O’Neill’s coaching team.
Steve Guppy’s work during the qualification process has largely gone unheralded by the wider public, but inside the Ireland camp the former Leicester winger is a hugely valued member of the backroom staff.
On Thursday, O’Neill will name his preliminary squad for the upcoming friendlies against Holland and Belarus, Ireland’s final two games before the real business starts in Paris against Sweden on June 13.
In recent weeks Guppy has been spending his studying DVD’s of Ireland’s Group E opponents, Sweden, Belgium and Italy, and it hasn’t made for comfortable viewing.
“I’m frightening myself half to death watching our opponents in the evenings; as many DVDs as I can,” Guppy said.
“I always find it the same, with Bosnia or Germany, you watch games on DVD and you get quite frightened to be honest.
“It’s international football at the end of the day and every team we play has world class stars but you’ve got to watch them and cling onto anything really that you can mention to the manager that may help.”
Why Vincent Kompany missing Euro 2016 may be bad news for Ireland https://t.co/MGvlYjp6u9
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Guppy also revealed that those discussions with O’Neill are becoming more and more frequent as the tournament nears.
“We’re certainly meeting up more and more,” he says. “There’s an awful lot of things to discuss.”
But as for his surveillance work on Ireland’s opponents. There’s one player in particular than stands out.
“I think Sweden have got a decent centre forward,” he says.
