Republic of Ireland will be kicking off their Euro 2016 campaign with a Group E encounter against Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s Sweden (yikes) on Monday and there’s already a jovial air in the nation’s capital.
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Brady said: “He’s a world-class player, but like everyone has said, he’s not the only one”.
The 24-year-old Norwich man, whether in Martin O’Neill’s team as a left-back or in a midfield role, will have the responsibility of taking the bulk of the set-pieces during the finals in France provided he shakes off – as he expects to – a minor back problem.
In explaining the scare, he told RTE Sport: “I was at home and I went to down to pick my little girl out of the bath and my back went into a bit of a spasm”.
Walters is the only injury concern for O’Neill as James McCarthy, Robbie Keane and Robbie Brady are all available for selection.
Jonathan Walters remains the only significant injury doubt and with the players having been given a rest day on Thursday, medical staff are hopefully that the issue he has with an Achilles tendon will have lessened by the time they resume work on Friday.
Initially I panicked a little bit, but within 24 hours, it had settled down so a couple of days out of training and then back in.
‘The medical staff were saying to leave Jon Walters as he is at this minute and let’s see how he is tomorrow, just to see if there was any reaction from training, ‘ said manager Martin O’Neill yesterday.
“I’ve a decent idea of the side but the players are very keen to start the game and a lot of them feel that they have got a chance of playing, which is good”.
“If we drew all three games, that might be enough to get us through to the knockout stages”.
O’Neill, who will head for France with his coaching team and players on Wednesday, said: “I am delighted that [chief executive] John Delaney and the FAI board have extended our contracts for the World Cup campaign”.
Ireland will also take on Belgium and Italy in Group E.
Brady added: “It’s exciting for everyone involved, including ourselves”.
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“But we are not getting carried away with ourselves”. It’s been a good camp so far and we are all looking forward to Monday.
