Are Ireland going to squeeze in another pre-Euros friendly?

With just two games scheduled for Trap’s boys ahead of the Euro 2012 kick-off, reports are emerging that Ireland will play another friendly before we face Croatia on June 10.

As we have said many times, Ireland’s build-up to this tournament has been remarkably without incident. Fingers crossed Richard Dunne is on the mend and aside from a few small niggles and selection issues regarding the left side of our midfield, things are going well.

But the big gap between our last game, against the Czech Republic on Feb 29, and the tournament might be a problem. To bridge it, the FAI have set up two friendlies so far. We will face Bosnia, a very good Bosnia side at that, in Aviva Stadium on May 26 and then the lads fly east, where they will play Hungary on June 4 in Budapest.

With most of our players' season’s finished up by early May, it seems Trap would like our lads to get one more game under their belt before taking on Croatia, Spain and Italy. Ireland are set to enjoy a pre-tournament camp in Trap’s native land as part of the process of prepping for Poland and, according to reports today in the Irish Independent, Albania may provide us with som eoposition while we are there.

The paper also reports that if that falls through, a local Serie C side may be the opposition, just to give the squad a run out against some class of team, probably on May 30. Neither Albania or a third-tier Italian side will be much like the might of Spain or Italy but the more time Trap has to watch his team the better, especially if players like Dunne or Stephen Hunt need to get back a bit of match sharpness.

The paper also reports that Trap will name his 23-man squad on May 7, 12 days from today, and that he will also name a few back-ups to go on stand-by that day.