Given passed fit to face German forward power

The Republic of Ireland are confident that their first-choice goalkeeper, Shay Given, will be fit to play in tomorrow's Group E match against Germany in Ibaraki, and equally certain that he will prove a more doughty defender of his net than his Saudi Arabian equivalent. Mohammed Al Deayea was beaten eight times by the Germans on Saturday, though the luckless keeper must have been aghast at the number of free headers contributing to that tally.

Given, who took a knock on the hip in the highly-creditable 1-1 draw against Cameroon at the weekend, will be assured of greater protection from the men in front of him, even if Mick McCarthy was to come out of retirement to play at centre-half. Goalkeepers often being superstitious fellows, the Newcastle United man is hoping that Germany have somehow used up their allocation of goals for the entire tournament.

"Obviously 8-0 was a bit of a shock, but Germany are a top team and are always capable of doing that," Given said yesterday. "It takes a top team to score that many – it doesn't matter who they are playing in the World Cup, if you win 8-0 you've got to be a quality team. We've got to get something from the game because if we don't it's going to be very difficult leaving it to the last game."

McCarthy and Ireland's goalkeeping coach, Packie Bonner, have every confidence in Given, who briefly lost his place in the Ireland team to Alan Kelly at the start of the 2000-01 season, but has since seen off challenges for the jersey by Kelly and Charlton's Dean Kiely.

"Shay is absolutely top-class and we've always believed in him even when he had a period out of the team with us and at club level through injury," McCarthy said. "He's world-class and to be honest he's got some competition as we've got three top-class goalkeepers here. So he must play well to stay in the team. His athleticism and shot stopping are incredible and he's got this desire never to be beaten.

"In training he puts himself in the way of things that perhaps other people wouldn't. He's also a hungry goalkeeper and possesses this desire to be the best. He's very ambitious."

Unusually, Ireland will not take the opportunity to train at the stadium today, as they are entitled to under Fifa rules. It appears to have come as something of a surprise that Ibaraki is so far from Chiba, the base they moved to after playing Cameroon, and McCarthy does not want the players spending two hours each way on a coach.