Living down to expectations
In 2002, the Lansdowne crowd chanted “Keano, Keano” as Mick McCarthy’s last game in charge ended in defeat to Switzerland.
In 2005, the Ireland fans roared in rage and disbelief as Israel and their pantomime villain goalkeeper Dudu Aouate took a 2-2 draw that fatally undermined Brian Kerr’s prospects of leading us to the World Cup.
In 2007, a group of fans unfurled a “Delaney Out” banner in the stand when Steve Staunton’s Ireland conceded a late equaliser away to San Marino. John Delaney jabbed his finger at those fans in celebration when Stephen Ireland struck the late winner, but the damage to Staunton had already been done.
In 2012, 50,000 people watched Ireland lose 6-1 at home and reacted with dumb acceptance. There was no rage and scarcely even any booing.
It’s as though everyone has finally become reconciled to the idea that the Ireland team is completely hopeless. Humiliation is the new normal.
The angriest man in the stadium was probably Giovanni Trapattoni, but he only lost his temper because he was subjected to some hostile questioning. Would he resign? The question was deemed “not intelligent critica”.
By Saturday afternoon, Trap was calm and businesslike. Defeat to Germany is acceptable, he explained. A five-goal defeat is not really any worse than a one-goal defeat. Ireland had lost key players to injury, there was never any chance the match would be a real contest. Germany were technically superior, physically superior. Several of their players were 1.88 metres tall. 1-6 was not a good result, sure, but don’t forget how well Ireland had played in Kazakhstan. Resign? Why on earth should he resign? Trap’s sangfroid was remarkable in light of the fact that he had just suffered one of the most crushing defeats of his career. Before going into his press conference, he told me with an air of wounded dignity that he had never lost by such a margin at home. This turned out to have been untrue — his Red Bull Salzburg side once lost 7-0 at home to Rapid Vienna — but he cannot have suffered many worse nights.
I have seen him in many worse moods, though. Alex Ferguson claims that when Manchester United lost 5-1 to Manchester City in 1989, he was so ashamed he skulked at home for fear of having to go out and meet the eyes of the people he had let down. Trapattoni appeared more annoyed by the news that Shane Long had told journalists he was fit to play against Serbia than he was by his team getting massacred 6-1.
Look at it from Trap’s point of view and you can understand why. What Long said was an affront to his personal authority, whereas Ireland losing 6-1 at home to Germany, well, that’s just the natural order of things. Trapattoni might as well get upset about the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.
Those of us who have been following Irish football longer than Trap know it hasn’t always been this way. In 2002 the aggregate score in Ireland’s matches against Spain and Germany was 2-2. Ten years later, it’s 1-10. It’s as though the team has internalised Trapattoni’s low opinion of their ability and is dutifully living down to his expectations.
It’s plain that Ireland is falling behind in international football, and Trapattoni is happy to lecture us on the foolishness of our unreasonable expectations. It hasn’t occurred to him that his absentee management style is another symptom of what has gone wrong with the Irish game. Irish football needs to work harder and smarter to make up the lost ground, but the senior international manager does the bare minimum of what is required to pick up his salary. The FAI accepts this as the price we have to pay for getting someone of Trapattoni’s status to agree to accept our money. When John Toshack tried to pull a similar stunt with Macedonia, they fired him.
Trap has always been a results manager, and results managers have one obvious weakness. In 1990, Brazil went to the World Cup under coach Sebastiao Lazaroni, who had them playing a defensive, Europeanised style that most Brazilians hated. Lazaroni snorted that football was about winning, not samba. The critics included Pele, who warned Lazaroni of the flaw in his approach: if Brazil lost, “all that will be left is the memory of a bad team.” Maradona knocked Brazil out in the second round, and that was the end of Lazaroni as manager.
When Ireland fans think back to 2012, they will remember a team that finally became as bad as its manager always believed it was.
