The cap now fits for Trap
As Ireland begin a week of preparations for a visit from Germany, Giovanni Trapattoni finds himself in a much-changed world, even if the transformation is not one he seems too inclined to accept.
Looking back to February, I see I was writing in this column about the wildly different experiences in these islands of two Italian managers. At the time, Trapattoni’s position as manager of Ireland was watertight and bullet-proof, the veteran effectively immune from criticism – of which there was still plenty about — as a consequence of Ireland having qualified the previous November for their first finals in ten years.
England were also on their way to Poland and the Ukraine yet they were leaving Fabio Capello behind — the Italian having jumped ship over his criticism of the FA’s decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy. Capello’s success in steering them through qualification barely merited an approving nod in the obituaries as the popular support rowed in behind Harry Redknapp before Roy Hodgson emerged as the compromise choice. Either way, the most important thing seemed to be that England wouldn’t be going to the finals with Cap in hand. Which, to the outsider, seemed like a very rum do indeed.
Since you can’t be done for plagiarising yourself, here’s how I put it at the time: “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 1-0 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.”
Well, that was then and this is now and, ten months on, David’s corner must feel like a much less comfortable place to be, after a succession of Goliaths punched the little feller’s lights out in Poznan and Gdansk. And that was before Ireland then struggled to take on the Goliath mantle themselves in Kazakhstan, almost going down to sucker-punch from a David considered, in world terms, to be a long way further down the food chain than ourselves.
And it gets worse. As one of the biggest Goliaths of them all heads for Dublin, any objective assessment of an Irish side which will have to do battle against Germany without Damien Duff, Richard Dunne and now Kevin Doyle, must concede that it’s significantly weaker than the one which contested the Euros, even with the injury concerns which were prevalent at the time.
So Trapattoni has hardly copped a break in terms of player availability this time around, though he still has a responsibility to make the best of a bad situation. For many of us, that would mean seeing James McClean – his ill-advised commentating notwithstanding — as a logical successor to Duff, playing James McCarthy as an extra man in a three-man midfield and starting Jon Walters as the lone frontman, with Robbie Keane held back to be sprung from the bench if Ireland are badly in need of a goal late on.
All the evidence suggests that Keane is not a man to thrive in the physically demanding role of lone frontman with a duty to hold the ball up but, as a reliable source of opportunistic invention and imagination around the box, he remains the go-to guy when it’s a goal that Ireland need to go to. Based on past experience, however, the expectation must be that Trap will keep change to a minimum, trusting to what worked in Euro qualification even if more of the same was so ruthlessly exposed in the finals themselves. But the manager can’t ship all the blame. Below par individual performances were a significant factor in Ireland’s under-achievement, when over-achievement was precisely what was required up against some of the best teams in European and world football.
And, now, there’s another one on the way. Whatever selection/formation transpires, you suspect that only a superlative effort by the players, and a significant helping of luck, will keep David on his feet this time around – and also help put off the day when Trap follows Cap through the out door.
* liammackey@hotmail.com
