Damien Duff could be coaxed out of international retirement to return for Republic of Ireland's World Cup qualifying campaign, according to Marco Tardelli, the side's assistant manager.
The Fulham winger called time on his 100-cap career following Ireland's last match of Euro 2012 and vowed never to return for his country.
Tardelli plans to speak to the winger once the matches with Kazakhstan and Oman are out of the way, though, in the hope that he can change the player's mind. The plan is to get Duff back in time for the next qualifier against Germany.
"I know he has said he has retired but I hope he will be back for the Germany game. It is possible," said Tardelli. "I don't know if he will or not, but I always see him during Fulham's matches and I think it is possible, why not? He is a very good player. He said he has stopped but I hope he will come back."
Ireland will try to put their Euro 2012 disappointment behind them this Friday by starting their World Cup qualification campaign with a win in Kazakhstan. Three defeats in Poland have led to questions about the future of head coach Giovanni Trapattoni, who is already without Darron Gibson after the Everton midfielder refused a call-up because he was disappointed with his failure to play during the European Championships.
"Giovanni is full of enthusiasm, just like he was the first time I met him," said Tardelli. "I don't understand why Giovanni is [being criticised] because he achieved good results."
The return of Duff would likely abate that discontent for a short time but the future is at the feet of Sunderland's James McClean. The winger could make his first competitive start for Ireland in Kazakhstan on Friday. He has already started a friendly, against Serbia last month.
"After his 90 minutes against Serbia, his position was clear," said Trapattoni. "Maybe in Kazakhstan McClean will play up with the two strikers. That is not a problem for him.
"The position is different [to where he usually plays], but he can also play there. We will wait and see what the condition of the other players is but he could play there."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article