Chile bring young squad to Dublin

Chile failed to qualify for the upcoming World Cup finals in Germany and manager Nelson Acosta is in the process of building a new team. He was in charge when they contested the World Cup finals in 1998 in France and he will lead his team against Ivory Coast and Sweden after they play Ireland. Chile will include in their squad for Wednesday's game against Ireland a winger who signed for Liverpool last year but has yet to play on Merseyside.

He is Mark Gonzalez who cost Liverpool ?3.9m when they signed him last year. He then went out on loan to Real Sociedad in La Liga when he was refused a permit to play for Liverpool.

Chile's current tour includes matches against the Republic of Ireland, ivory Coast5 and Sweden and they will be chasing results to help them boost their FIFA ranking. They are currently ranked 64th and they must remain within the top 70 if the 21 years old Gonzalez is to be given a work permit.

Gonzalez is reported in today's "Irish Independent" as saying: "These three games are very important for Chile and for myself because Chile need to be competitive for me to get a work permit and play in England."

Gonzalez spoke to reporter Eoin Dunne after Chile's training session at Belfield Park and he said: "A lot of people will be watching the games and it is important that I play well.

"To net get a permit was very sad for me. I return to Liverpool on July 3 and I hope this time it is for good. I will get an answer on the permit in June or July."

Gonzalez is a winger in a young Chile team that is trying to overcome the loss of such major stars as Ivan Zamorano and Marcelo Salas, who have retired.

Meantime it is clear that the match will draw a near capacity crowd to Lansdowne Road (kick-off 7.30 pm).