INTERNATIONAL SOCCER: THE ALREADY slender chances of a rapid rapprochement between Giovanni Trapattoni and Dean Kiely in the wake of last week's decision by the West Brom goalkeeper to leave the Republic of Ireland squad for home have all but evaporated after the Italian branded the 38-year-old's behaviour as "kindergarten" stuff.

Kiely left the team hotel last Thursday when it became apparent Shay Given was to start the game and Keiren Westwood was to get a run-out later in the evening.

It is believed he was annoyed at having been given the impression by coaching staff that he would feature and with Given who, he apparently believes, is denying the squad’s other goalkeepers opportunities to play.

Trapattoni didn’t initially seem to completely rule out the possibility of the former Charlton and Portsmouth player returning ahead of Saturday’s vital World Cup qualifier in Sofia which would be something of a bonus considering Westwood is getting married next weekend and so won’t be available. But his attitude clearly hardened over the weekend with the 70-year-old angrily condemning the goalkeepers behaviour.

The manager made the point that all of his players at Craven Cottage wanted to play but when it was put to him that the others weren’t being kept off the bench by somebody who will not even be travelling on Thursday due to the timing of his wedding, he rather gave the lie to the original suggestion that he had simply accepted Kiely’s desire to return home to his family.

“This is an excuse; this is an excuse!” he said angrily. “To me it’s an excuse that you can’t, at 39, accept that a younger player is going to play or is going to be tried out.

“I cannot accept the situation where the player is not willing to see that . . . it’s like the kids who are zero, it’s like the kindergarten.

“This was an opportunity and there would be other opportunities in goal for others. Every player cannot say; ‘Eh, uh, no, I stay at home’.

“It was like that in the past with three or four players who said: ‘No, I don’t play for the Ireland team.’ Team Ireland is team Ireland and great players have to show commitment independently on the choices that they make. This is an excuse, it’s nothing to do with a wedding.”

The hard line adopted by the manager has left him to scramble about for replacements and Paddy Kenny looks set to return to the Ireland squad for the first time since the 5-2 defeat in Cyprus in October 2006 along with either the man drafted in to replace him in the wake of that game, Wayne Henderson, or Birmingham City’s Colin Doyle.

Joe Murphy appears to have been unavailable to be called up as he is on holidays and Trapattoni will confirm either today or tomorrow, when the squad reconvenes in London, which two of the three others have been drafted in with his comments over the weekend firmly implying that Kenny is one and reports back in Dublin suggesting Henderson is the other.

Trapattoni has said, meanwhile, he is perfectly happy to wait for the FAI to decide whether it wants him to stay on as Ireland manager beyond the end of his current deal but acknowledged, when asked about it, that there is nothing to prevent him speaking to other potential employers about what he might do next year.

“At the moment it’s not a problem. We have to qualify; we have to try to qualify. Maybe in the future (we’ll talk), after the Bulgaria game but it’s not a problem. For me it’s not a question of when. When the FAI decide they want to decide that’s fine.”

Pressed about the possibility that another association or club might come in to sound him out, he observed: “In the contract it is not forbidden for people to call and ask you; ‘Oh what do you do after November or after April?’

“We can speak; it’s no problem because all there is a contract. But what is important is to qualify, after that if the FAI, the Irish people are happy with our work, our job then I said that I am happy to be here. We have time, though, it’s not a question for now what happens with the federation.”

The FAI, meanwhile, have confirmed Argentina will be Ireland’s first opponents at the new Lansdowne Road on August 11th, 2010 when the newly-redeveloped stadium opens next year.