Trap insists players have the heart and ability to sink Spain

Paul Hyland

TIGHT-lipped Giovanni Trapattoni has called on his players to remember their pride and roots when they take on Spain in a do-or-die battle in Gdansk tonight.

Refusing to name his team in a bid to deny Vicente del Bosque (pictured) any further advantage than the world champions already enjoy, Trap offered hope that Ireland's Euro 2012 adventure will still be alive by tomorrow morning.

"I can't give you the line-up because as I have said to you, I have to think very well about it," he said.

"I am proud to be the manager of the Irish players because the Irish players have heart. We have attitude, mentality, commitment, technical ability. We don't make bets, but I think we can win. Why not?"

"We have achieved results not only with heart because we have met France, Bulgaria, Italy, many other teams and we played the same. We play our football.

"We can hope. We have a very delicate situation now. We are playing against a very strong team but if we win we can have another attitude. Italy and Spain have one point. At this moment, it's all open."

Trapattoni refuses to accept that Spain's vastly superior technical skills will make it nigh on impossible for Ireland to get a result which would make qualification from the group phase a possibility.

"Our team is creative enough and technical enough. Maybe Spain have one or two more creative players, but football is not only about creative players.

"Having nothing to lose does not mean we are not aware of the capabilities of our opponents. I'm not going to let them just take the ball and go up the other end and score a goal."