A matter of life and death
But then it seems that quite a few of the Irish who’ve never made it this far north have always harboured a certain amount of confusion about its identity. Or perhaps even its very existence.
Chatting to Brian upon arrival in the world’s smallest capital city, Torshavn, he recalled how, when back in Ireland after his time as manager in the Faroes, he was accosted more than once by people who congratulated him on the great work he’s done in, variously, Iceland, the Falkland Islands and even – gulp! — Egypt.
But, however you choose to regard the Faroes – and, personally, I would recommend enchanting as your default setting – there can be no getting away from the fact that this magical speck in the North Atlantic provided something close to the most unlikeliest of settings in the whole wide world of football for what, earlier in the week, was being billed with some certainty as Giovanni Trapattoni’s last act as manager of the Republic of Ireland.
Except that now we know it wasn’t. With the professional obituaries all ready to run, on Wednesday evening came the dramatic news that the cat had gotten out of the sack. With one mighty bound, he was free! So how many lives does that mean ‘Il Trap’ has left now? Eight? Eighteen? Eighty? If we’ve learnt one thing this week, it’s that it doesn’t pay to try to predict the future of a wily operator whose passion for the game, even at 73, appears inexhaustible. And who also, it must be said, carried himself with a lot of class in the teeth of the media firestorm following a newspaper report which, citing a senior source in the FAI, suggested that only a miracle in Torshavn would save him from the chop. There aren’t many other football managers I can think of who, at an eve of match press conference, would calmly and courteously field a succession of loaded questions about their own future, just 24 hours before a vital three points were up for grabs for his team.
That Ireland claimed those points and, after an admittedly laboured first half, in ultimately convincing fashion, was obviously vital to Trapattoni keeping his job. Coming just days after that embarrassing mauling by Germany and against the wider backdrop of Ireland’s dismal summer and that improbable jailbreak in Kazakhstan, anything less than a decent win against the lowly Faroes, and it would have been “taxi for Mr T.” (Well, okay, ferry then).
As he eyeballed his own destiny this week and mounted the case for his defence, Trapattoni repeatedly referenced his successes in his first two campaigns as Ireland manager. Only those with the most green-tinted view of Ireland’s status in world and European football view, coupled with an equally exaggerated estimation of the quality of the talent pool available to the national manager, would make the case with any confidence that we should be dependable qualifiers for either of the two big international tournaments. The implication of that view is that Irish football belongs with the elite – a notion which, we hardly need reminding, received a rude awakening in Poland in June.
No, Ireland should be competitive in qualifying, certainly, but to break on through to the promised land – or even to get as far as the threshold, as the team did in the Stade de France – are notable achievements for which Giovanni Trapattoni is entitled to take great credit. The problem is that those two campaigns might as well belong to ancient history now, and for Trap to still be calling them up as evidence in his defence – as he repeatedly does – is to miss the point of the current prosecution case: that his team began to go into freefall virtually from the moment they finished celebrating at the end of the play-off against Estonia in Dublin last November..
In a business where you’re only as good as your last game – or even your next – the importance of the win in the Faroes can’t be overestimated in terms of permitting Trapattoni to move forward with at least the appearance of some fresh wind in his sails. Yet, in truth, it was a convincing 45 rather than 90 minutes up in Torshavn, a performance of highs and lows which, while more than good enough for precious qualification points, hardly represented a catch-all cure for the deeper malaise which assailed the manager and his team in Astana and then brought them to their knees when Germany came to town.
But, apart from the scoreline, it’s true that there were a couple of other seeds of encouragement to bring back with us from the Faroes. The belated recognition of Seamus Coleman and Marc Wilson as superior full-back options is welcome but raises a testing question for the manager: what to do with John O’Shea? A similar conundrum for Trapattoni is provided by – or should be provided by — the challenge James McCarthy is laying down to Glenn Whelan. All through this transitional phase for the national team there are similar selection decisions which need to be dealt with head-on, involving the competing claims – involving loyalty versus adventure and experience versus energy — of the likes of Robbie Keane, Shane Long, James McClean and Simon Cox. And that’s before we even get into the thorny question of a formation which is guaranteed to get the best out of the playing talent which is available. Ah, so much to do and so little time in which to do it. From the training pitch to the club grounds to the national stadia, how Giovanni Trapattoni adjusts to the reality of life after professional near-death will decide so much – not just for his own immediate future but also for the country’s hopes of rocking into Rio in 2014.
So, as ever, no pressure then.
* liammackey@hotmail.com
