New campaign will define Trap’s tenure
Of course, Paris was one of those sporting events which, for reasons still too painful to revisit in detail, had an unusually extended shelf life.
Yet, despite the sense that we’re still in recovery from November’s events in the Stade de France, a lot has actually changed in the big world of football since the boys in green last kicked a ball in anger, not least the collapse in status of former superpowers France and Italy on the back of their almost comically woeful misadventures in South Africa.
Ireland’s performances against them in the qualifiers were widely hailed at the time as the most impressive of the Giovanni Trapattoni era, especially the away draws in Bari and Paris, but the spectacular implosion of both teams in South Africa, retrospectively suggests that they had begun their slide down the ropes when the Irish came close to landing knock-out blows.
Which is not to say that Ireland didn’t generally play well or even deserve better from their first campaign under Italian direction – just that, as a measure of where we are at, the World Cup qualifiers might be about as reliable as those endlessly mysterious FIFA rankings.
Set against the lows of the Steve Staunton era, it’s clear enough what Trapattoni has brought to the team thus far: stability, self-belief, organisation, discipline, resilience and a sprinkling of unlikely lads – Keith Andrews, Glenn Whelan, Liam Lawrence, Sean St Ledger – who have grown impressively as international footballers under his attentive stewardship.
And while there are a few promising contenders waiting in the wings – among them Paul Green, Greg Cunningham, James McCarthy, Anthony Stokes and, when he recovers from injury, David Meyler – it will be a surprise if Trapattoni doesn’t load his starting line-up with familiar faces for next month’s opening game in Armenia.
Availability permitting, you could practically name it now: Given, O’Shea, Dunne, St Ledger, Kilbane, Lawrence, Andrews, Whelan, Duff, Keane, Doyle.
Trapattoni, who places enormous value on experience, won’t be unduly fazed if a few of his charges are spending too much time cooling their heels on various benches just now. While the likes of Robbie Keane and Shay Given hardly find themselves in ideal situations as a new season unfolds, history suggests that Trap is right not to worry, at least in the short-term.
Flicking through the wonderful Lansdowne Road, the newly-published nostalgia-fest by Ger Siggins and Malachy Clerkin, I came across a reminder that Jason McAteer had been effectively frozen out at Ewood Park before he popped up at the old ground to score one of the most celebrated goals in Irish football history – the whipped shot on the afternoon of September 1, 2001 which did for Holland and nudged Ireland closer to the World Cup finals in Japan and Korea.
(Incidentally, and for no reason other than it’s well worth repeating, the same book recalls that when Ireland hosted France in rugby at the same venue in 1985, the clash of rival locks Willie Anderson and Jean Claude Condom was celebrated on the terraces by a banner which proudly declared: “Our Willie is bigger than your Condom”. As memorable banners go, I reckon it’s second only to the beauty held aloft by the Tartan Army when Scotland played the USSR at the World Cup in Spain in 1982: “Alcoholism Versus Communism”).
All of which is by way of saying that this Euro campaign will be a defining one for Irish football: for the Trapattoni project, for the older players nearing the end, for the rookies looking to kick-start their international careers and, not least, for the FAI, whose huge financial commitment to the Aviva Stadium would be eased considerably by successful qualification for the 2012 finals in Ukraine and Poland.
But for all the obvious signs of progress and despite that horrible miscarriage of justice in Paris, the awkward fact remains that Trapattoni has done no better than Staunton or Brian Kerr before him in so far as he too has failed to get Ireland to the finals of a major tournament.
Where he is at an advantage is that, wisely in my opinion, the FAI have committed to giving him two full campaigns in which to achieve that goal. So it’s one down and, at least, one to go. Or, at most, one to go, if the veteran Italian doesn’t get his charges over the line this time and take Ireland to their first European Championship finals since 1988. And, no, that doesn’t feel like yesterday.
- liammackey@hotmail.com
