Soccer: Giovanni Trapattoni has insisted he has not changed his mind on his starting XI for Croatia on Sunday, despite claiming after last night's 0-0 draw with Hungary that he was considering adopting a different system.

After taking his squad through an open training session for the first time at Gdynia this afternoon, the Italian suggested his opinion on the game in Budapest had softened after another viewing this morning and he now viewed the performance in a more sympathetic light.

“I watched the game with more calm this morning and I made a view considerations, looking at it on the positive and some also negative,” he began. “On the positive side the defence was well balanced and solid.

“The only real danger came from deflection on 90 minutes and the shot from outside the box on 20 minutes.”

The Italian said he had not yet had the chance to speak properly with his players but he would ask them “why we have not started the game as we have in the past”. It emerged later that the 73-year-old is willing to accept the weather delay at the start of the game, during which the players spent 20 minutes in the tunnel, as a valid excuse.

Other things to be considered, he added later when questioned about below par performances from all the Group C teams in recent days, were long seasons in Germany, England and Spain and the “psychological” pressures of preparing for a major tournament.

He dismissed, though not directly, the suggestion by Aiden McGeady that training has been a bit too full on.

“It’s not true we have trained too hard, because the players need the rest. It is only a light training session.”

When asked to clarify, then, whether his opinion on his starting XI for the first game in Poznan had changed from Sunday, he said it had not, but suggested he needed to see more effort from his players.

“I said also this, three days ago, I remain of this opinion,” he said. “I know our problem with this line-up - because Russia - I have to speak with them. I ask them this sacrifice, it is important this. When we have the doubt about this sacrifice I can also change.

“It’s different, (you) said I change opinion, I no change opinion.”

The question, though, or perhaps the attempt at an explanation appeared to exasperate the Italian slightly, and he explained to an Italian journalist in his mother tongue that the Irish press corps simply did not understand.

The ever-obliging Manuela Spinelli, translated.

“I don’t know why you don’t understand, if you need to be here instead of there then you have to be here not there.”

And, with that, the room was back on side.

"I saw many games of the Irish team before I came here," he continued. "One of my players I asked him, why when you have the ball and attack, after you lose the ball your opponent gets the ball, goes, goes, makes a cross and you lose the game. Where were you?

"You stayed up front without the ball and the others scored a goal while you were like Pontius Pilate," he added, washing his hands of responsibility. "If this player goes back and doesn’t allow him to make a cross then it wouldn’t have been a goal."

In a final bit of housekeeping, the manager inisted the absence of Shay Given, John O'Shea and Glenn Whelan

from today's session was nothing to be concerned about and merely to afford the trio a rest.