Stephen Ireland says he couldn’t afford to make Ireland call-ups and claims lockdown training with United stars left him with ‘sore back’ carrying Fred

In the second part of an exclusive with Ladbrokes: Fanzone interview, former Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland talks about his training sessions with three United stars during lockdown and why he never played that many games for the Republic.

Click on the link for part one in which Ireland chats about the rebellious Saido Berahino and the stories surrounding his legendary fines at Stoke.

Lockdown training sessions with Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Dalot and Fred… my back was sore carrying Fred!

Well Bruno Fernandes was actually a neighbour of mine, and so during lockdown we were living on the same street; me, him and Diogo Dalot, so I was asked if I could source a pitch for the guys to train on so they could keep up their programme for Manchester United. The guy who asked me was a trainer called Jamie Reynolds. He works out in Birmingham and he’s trained the likes of Anthony Joshua and Cristiano Ronaldo. He got in touch with me to say Bruno had reached out to him to do some training through lockdown and so he wanted to know if I could help out.

I managed to get a couple of places to open up their pitches privately, and we ended up just training together throughout lockdown. It was unbelievable and I actually loved it. It gave me a new lease of life. It was Diogo, Bruno and Fred from United – and every day they were keeping up with their United programmes but for a couple of hours afterwards we were just doing football drills. Shooting, volleys, competitions – I had to raise my game, I’m not going to lie!

It was always me and Fred against Diogo and Bruno in the competitions… my back was sore from carrying Fred, I can’t lie! I was carrying him in all of the competitions we did! It was just an unreal experience, though. The weather was outrageous. We brought a goalkeeper along and just trained every day. They couldn’t get enough of it. Every day they were asking us to come back tomorrow.

It was a great experience for me to see them in the flesh, as well. Bruno is just absolutely incredible. Great physique, fit, he knows the game really well, he’s so intelligent. He might come across as a little hot-headed at times during games, but I put that down to him being a winner. He’s passionate, he wants to win  and that’s how he projects it, unfortunately. But what a player, what a pro.

Bruno was taking free-kicks from 30 and 40 yards and it was as if he was taking penalties, it was nuts. He was hitting these balls effortlessly, like absolute rockets, going exactly where he wanted them to, time after time. I’m sitting there thinking ‘I don’t even think I could reach the goal from here, let alone the top corner’. Honestly, it was unreal.

They were great guys, really, really good guys. After the first couple of days of doing shooting drills, Bruno comes over to me. I didn’t even think they knew who I was. For all I knew, to them, I was some bald little trainer, some caretaker or someone who was just opening up the pitch for them. I genuinely didn’t think they’d have a clue who I was, and then Jamie, the coach, asks Bruno if he knows who I am. He goes on to say he was always signing me from Manchester City on Football Manager!

Cork youngster Cathal Heffernan, is flying in Milan… we’re hopeful he’ll be the finished article at 21

Cathal Heffernan is doing really well with AC Milan. He’s training regularly with the first team and playing with the U17s and U19s. He’s in no better place to learn his trade as a defender than in Italy with AC Milan. For his education, spending the next two or three years out there, he just can’t go wrong. Even if his future is away from the club, what he’ll take from that experience, development-wise, both on and off the field, he’ll come away from it as a ridiculous talent at 19 or 20 years old.

Cathal’s a really top kid. He comes from a great family, he’s a really driven boy and is mature way beyond his years. I have high hopes for him, but I understand the journey is tough for these young players, and it’s getting harder. There’s a long, long road ahead for Cathal, but he’s giving it everything, and he’s taking everything that’s thrown at him.

He’s a top kid, he really is. He’s been so independent out there, and that makes a massive difference, especially when you’re a youngster playing away from home. I’ve been there, but the way he’s dealing with it is unbelievable. Playing for AC Milan is a fantastic honour, but there’s so much more to it than that. There’s a whole lot of downtime, and that’s where things like homesickness begin to kick in. But he’ll just take himself away, go off travelling on his own, sightseeing… what 17-year-old does that? Like I say, he’s a really special lad and is so mature for his age. His Italian isn’t too bad, either! He’s into everything out there; he soaks up so much information.

He’s a credit to himself, and a credit to his family. He’s definitely one to watch and he deserves every success he gets.

I’ve been working with Cathal since he was 14. He lived in Cork and I was in Manchester. I’m close to his family and I’ve built up such a good relationship with them. Since I first saw him playing for Ireland U15s and I realised he was from Cork, I just struck up a relationship with him. Since then, he’s been coming over and staying with me, probably six or seven times a year. It could be for five days, it could be for a month. In the last lockdown, I told his family to just book a one-way ticket to get him over to me for as long as he wanted. He moved in with us for a month and a half, and we just trained every single day.

I’ve thrown him in with pros and ex-pros, Bruno Fernandes, Joleon Lescott, Emile Heskey, I’ve exposed him to all of that so he’s constantly learning and developing. I want him to take in as much information as he can – it’s invaluable at that stage of his career. I’ve really given him the opportunity to see what it’s like and what it takes to make it at the top level. When you’re training with these boys, their speed of thought is massive, it’s a real lesson for Cathal.

Since coming over and having these training sessions, he’s gone from a centre-back at 14 or 15 who was just this physical specimen, to – all of a sudden – having trials at Leicester and Manchester United where reports on him are coming back, describing him as a two-footed, ball-playing centre-back. That’s all happened in the space of a few months. When he first came over, his left leg was just for standing on, and now he’s a both-footed centre-half. I worked on all of those attributes with him. He comes from an athletics background, so he’s always going to have that side covered, but the football side is down to me, working on his ball distribution and all these other bits and pieces.

Hopefully, the more well-rounded he gets, we might be able to see something close to the finished article, even at the age of, say, 21.

Football Manager love, and who my go-to signing is…

I love Football Manager, it’s my favourite game and I’m literally obsessed with it. I know Miles Jacobsen who makes it, he sends it over to me early. Every time I get that email from him I’m like a kid at Christmas, rubbing my hands. It’s very detailed these days, but the great manager I am, it’s no problem for me!

If I was always Bruno Fernandes’ go-to signing on the game, then mine – in the last few years – would be Lautaro Martinez from Inter Milan. We’ve got a great relationship, me and him. I take him everywhere I go. He’s my guy.

I’m a wonderkid kind of guy, though. You won’t me find me googling who the wonderkids are, I prefer to go out and find them myself. I’m a hidden gem kind of guy, so I’ll go to Uruguay, find a kid and turn him into something mental.

It’s the greatest game on the planet. My kids won’t have it, it’s all FIFA this and FIFA that for them. They’ve got no idea. I love it. It comes out and you start a new career, spend about two hours playing the thing and you’ve not even got to your first friendly. But I love it.

It was a great moment when I finally made it onto the game, I’m not going to lie. There was a time for the first two or three years where – and I’m not saying I was a wonderkid – I should’ve been in the game. My team-mates were but I never was, and I’d just be losing my mind wondering what on earth was going on. I was there or thereabout in our academy as one of the main players, but I never, ever, made the game. It was my dream to be on it, and some of my team-mates – who were terrible – were somehow on it ahead of me.

When I finally made it onto Football Manager, it was class – my mates were all sending me pictures and all of that sort of stuff. I’d never buy myself, though. Miles, the creator, always did me dirty, though. He never gave me a good rating. I used to be insulted, to be honest. He’d stick my pace at something like eight out of 20. Even in my best season, he was still putting my pace at eight. Ridiculous.

Ireland call-up came too soon for me – my life was a shambles

I was back in Dublin recently and, to be honest, it was quite surprising for me because the response I had from supporters out there was really positive. I had some really good feedback from a lot of people out there. It’s kind of irrelevant because I didn’t play for them long enough to deserve any sort of recognition from them, so I certainly don’t expect anything.

I’ve got really fond memories and had some great times but, I think, me playing for Ireland probably happened too early in my career. I got into the first team when I was around 18, and I really wanted it, I’m not disputing that. And I think I earned it, too, because I gave it everything.

But I didn’t realise how much time it would take up, and everything that came with playing for the national side. It just happened at the wrong time for me. My life was chaotic, I was single with two kids, playing for Man City’s first team and was on £95 a week. I couldn’t even afford to go away. The stress, and how hard it was to deal with, made it virtually impossible for me to go away. I must have had 10 call-ups and was able to make one. I couldn’t make it, I literally couldn’t make it.

How is that even possible? As a young kid, playing in the Premier League, how was I not able to make it? My life was just a shambles, to be honest with you. It was so chaotic and unfortunately I couldn’t commit to an international career, as much as I would have loved to. I envied the lads who could go, because I couldn’t.

Looking back now I get frustrated, because I’m thinking ‘why didn’t you ask Man City for support?’ Why didn’t I do this? Why didn’t I do that?’ But they were different times – it was just a completely different era.

It’s just a shame, because I had so much to offer. I could have given the team so much. But at the end of the day, that was my bed and I had to lie in it. If my debut had come maybe two or three years later, when everything in my life was where it needed to be, then maybe things would have been different. It was just too difficult a time for me to put 100% of my heart into it.