Tale of Fab and Trap shows different style of the Italian jobs
There might only have been the width of the Irish Sea separating the two Italian jobs but this week we learned again that there is a world of difference between managing the Republic of Ireland and managing England.
Yesterday, Giovanni Trapattoni was back in the driving seat, laying out the next stage of his European Championship finals plans in Waterford, while his compatriot and colleague was reduced to signalling his disgust from the historical sidelines as English football, with barely a backward glance, got on with the all too familiar business of clearing up another fine mess — and perhaps even creating another one in the process.
For Fab and the FA, there were probably few regrets on either side, when all was said and done, and certainly a minimum of sympathy on the part of a succession of pundits and pros who lined up to tell the Italian not to let the door hit him on the way out.
A recurring complaint over the last few days has been that Capello “never learned the language”, the kind of tut-tut observation which can only ever be a source of mirth for those of us on the other side of the Irish Sea who have had to come to grips with an entirely esoteric tongue, one perhaps best described as ‘Trapeze’, over the last few years.
From what I saw of Capello, he was a man of few words, right enough, but generally speaking they were in the right order and contained sufficient clarity to get his point across without too much ambiguity.
By contrast, Trapattoni is a man of many words, some of them English to be sure, but also incorporating German and Italian, and when all else fails him he is not above resorting to sometimes tremendously physical acts of mime. We’ve gotten used to a lot of it by now, of course, especially signature words and phrases like ‘enthuiasmos’, ‘rhythmos’, ‘colleeega’ and ‘ball is ball’.
We know that when he might say of a player that “he like us” he really means “we like him”. And we definitely understand that when he speaks about the role of “swingers”, he’s talking about wide men rather than wild men and wild women.
Still, there are times when, especially after one his more impassioned and extended riffs, we can all be left perfectly baffled by Trap, conscious that he has said something potentially very interesting but damned if we know what exactly it was, other than that it will almost invariably have involved, in passing, reverential mention of Platini and Boniek.
On days like these, a media ritual peculiar to the Trapattoni era has arisen – the post-press conference press huddle, in which a bunch of us will gather to compare notes and try to establish some common ground between those who interpreted him, with absolute certainty, as saying one thing and those who interpreted him, with not a scintilla less conviction, as saying exactly the opposite.
And those are occasions when, with a deadline looming large, you can be sure that ‘Trapeze’ can tax even our ‘enthusiasmos’.
But, more often than not, we come away from a meeting with Trap at least feeling we’ve been entertained if not always hugely enlightened. And that’s something which highlights a quality which is not often given enough consideration when it comes to ticking off the attributes which help make a good manager. Yes, we all know about the importance of man-management, of tactical nous, of inspirational leadership, of talent-spotting and the ability to generate a winning habit. (Or, at least, a not-losing one, sez you).
But what about the value of a winning personality? I’m sure it can’t have helped Fabio Capello’s cause that he rarely comes across as anything other than entirely humourless. Whereas it’s a rare encounter with Trapattoni which doesn’t involve a good deal of laughter.
If there was one factor which you might expect would unite Trap and Fab in the popularity stakes, it would be the ability to oversee qualification for the big tournaments. But, here again, this week has shown us just how radically different the Irish and English experiences can be.
In most of the pieces written about Capello in the English press, there has been little credit given to the manager for steering his side unbeaten through to the Euro finals. Instead, they’re still banging on about the fiasco that was England’s World Cup in South Africa. And even as recently as last November, when Capello helmed what should have been a morale-boosting friendly victory over world and European champions Spain, the media were mainly up in arms about the negative tactics which helped the home side to their one-nil win.
Of course, we understand where all this comes from – an irrational sense of national supremacy, born of an overblown view of the Premiership’s stature coupled with a persistent hangover from the days of empire. Not that we’re without our own great and sometimes even outlandish expectations here, of course. But while Trapattoni’s reign has not been without its own bumps in the road, you have to suspect that, having seen the fate which befell his compatriot this week, he’s much happier being in David’s corner than Goliath’s.
* liammackey@hotmail.com
