Trap moves into time added on
“I don’t see the system as a problem,” he said, “I think that’s a very simplistic analysis.” Maybe so, but not half as simplistic as his assertion in the next breath that if Ireland secure a win in Kazakhstan on Friday, “everyone will be happy again”.
There is so much weary disenchantment around Trapattoni’s Ireland now that it will take more than three points in Astana to restore the confidence in the manager which took such a terrible beating in Poland this summer. A win at home to Germany in October would help a lot more, but after seeing Ireland so badly exposed by three other top ten sides at Euro 2012, few will fancy his team’s chances of securing even a point against one of the superpowers of world football.
And Trap himself hasn’t done much to lift morale with his erratic stewardship since the Euros. First, there was his unambiguous declaration that his four “seniors” — Shay Given, Damien Duff, Robbie Keane and Richard Dunne – would all be staying on for the World Cup campaign, an assurance which blew up in his face with the retirement of first Given and then Duff.
And while his success in keeping Dunne and Keane on board is not be sniffed at, Trap’s overall handling of the issue of his elder statesmen has conveyed the disturbing sense of a manager reacting to, rather than dictating, events.
Then there have been his mixed messages over tactics. Immediately after the Euros, he cited the friendly against Serbia as an opportunity to try something new but, when it came to it, his flirtation with 4-3-3 in Belgrade was half-hearted at best and, having given a variation of that system about 30 minutes on the night before deciding to abandon it, he is now saying that it will be back to 4-4-2 for Kazakhstan, almost as if nothing has happened to change the picture since Ireland qualified for the Euros last November.
But, in truth, the uncertainty surrounding personnel and tactics is almost beside the point: the real game-changer for Trapattoni happened in Poland. With three defeats on the bounce, his own bottom-line – that it’s all about the results, stoopid – was demolished. The prolonged agony of Ireland’s Euro 2012 was what really triggered the widespread disaffection which has already hardened into calls from some quarters for the manager’s head. Yet, Benitez – even allowing for his own understandable aversion to gaffers getting the heave-ho — was surely onto something when he also said this week: “I think it’s important to think about the big picture and try to be calm. You cannot be the best beforehand and the worst afterwards. Before the Euros everything about Trapattoni was positive … now after the Euros everything is bad and he should be sacked.”
Well, it might be a stretch to say that everything was positive before the Euros but, still, Benitez has a point: after all, it was under Trapattoni that Irish football not only recovered the ground lost in the Steve Staunton era but progressed with sufficient pace and purpose to get to the brink of qualifying for the World Cup in his first campaign and then make it to the Euro finals in his second. For a country of Ireland’s average stature in European and world football, these rank as considerable achievements.
But the higher you climb the greater the risk of a calamitous fall – which is precisely what happened in the summer. Probably only in Ireland – where we have a tendency to exaggerate the quality of the talent at our disposal, in part, I would suggest, because we also have a tendency to worship too uncritically at the altar of the Premier League – was there a real belief that the team could confound the odds at Euro 2012. Viewed from almost anywhere else, a cool, rigorous and logical appraisal of the group would have had the Irish always struggling to get anything much out of Croatia, Spain and Italy.
And so it proved, though the challenge actually turned out to be even more ferocious than some had feared, with Italy and Spain eventually going on to contest the final itself. Again, Benitez put it rather neatly when he said this week: “I can only say in the most polite way possible, that Spain were really good: that was Ireland’s problem.”
Well, the main part of the problem, certainly. It might have been no disgrace to lose three games against top ten opposition but it was still a crushing disappointment that Ireland and Trapattoni could do so little to stem the tide. The concession of early goals, the out of sorts performances of quite a few players and the manager’s seeming helplessness on the sidelines to effect change for the better all added up to a bleak picture of under-achievement when the very opposite was always what was going to be required if Ireland were to have nurtured any hope of making it a Euro finals to remember.
Yet, on the basis of what he achieved over two full campaigns, Trapattoni is entitled to his latest shot at redemption, even if it’s hard to shake off the feeling that he is already on borrowed time, with serious grounds for wondering if he still retains the belief of all his players and next Friday’s potentially tricky assignment in Kazakhstan looking like a must-win game in view of the fact that next it will be Germany calling. A lot might have changed since this time last year, when Ireland were facing into a pivotal double-header against Slovakia and Russia, but one constant remains: it’s results which will dictate whether Trapattoni stays or goes.
* liammackey@hotmail.com
