LIAM MACKEY: A new front in the war of words
That was especially the case during a thoroughly unpalatable first half-hour from the boys in green even if, happily, things did take a somewhat more nourishing turn in the second half.
However, we all had to wait until the aftermath for the real meat of the week as — again, not for the first time — Giovanni Trapattoni managed to trigger a public war of words.
Just looking at some of the passionate and accusatory language in Stephen Kelly’s statement yesterday — “shocked and disgusted”, “untrue and unwarranted”, “distress and upset”, “hurtful”, “defame” — it’s hard to think of a more ferocious attack on an Irish manager by a serving Irish player. Unless, of course, we include Saipan — but then, no printed record exists of that infamous offensive. (More’s the pity).
Irrespective of who’s right or who’s wrong in their interpretation of what happened in camp before the squad flew to the Faroe Islands last October, there’s no escaping the fact that Trapattoni brought this latest intensification of the controversy down on his own head by revisiting the issue in such strident terms at his press conference in Dublin last Thursday.
Having attended more Trapattoni ‘pressers’ than I’ve had hot horses over the last five years, I’m about as certain as I can be that this was not the Italian’s intention when he walked into the media room in Abbotstown. After all, Trapattoni himself had sought to put the issue of a row with the player to bed a couple of times before.
Yet when a couple of questions about Kelly did materialise — in tandem with queries about Darron Gibson’s availability — there came a moment which has, by now, become pretty familiar to us dedicated Trap-watchers. You couldn’t quite call it the descent of the red mist, but it’s a point where the manager’s exasperation with a line of questioning suddenly manifests itself in an upward change of tone and temperature — and proceeds to escalate from there.
And so it was on Thursday, Trapattoni’s initial bland response suddenly giving way to an impulsive decision to, as he presumably saw it, finally tell it like it was on the subject of Kelly. And so we had the allegation that the player had effectively served him with an ‘I play or I go’ ultimatum, followed by an angry and impassioned plea for loyalty to the shirt, all of which provocative invective, in turn, sent Kelly off on a retaliatory warpath.
Then came the additional twist to a sorry saga yesterday, in the form of an FAI response which could only be interpreted as a reprimand for the manager for, once again, overstepping the mark in comments made in public about one of his players.
In the absence of all the facts and, bearing in mind that there are often more than two sides to a story, it would be easy but unfair to apportion all the blame to Trapattoni for the lengthy list of incidents involving players who have found themselves at odds with him since he took over the national team. But there’s no doubt that the litany plays badly with that vociferous section of the public which, particularly since the crushing disappointment of the Euros, has grown increasingly disenchanted with the Italian’s reign.
Yet the FAI can’t complain too much either if the media perceive in the association’s latest response evidence of disenchantment with Trapattoni in Abbotstown too, and not least because there was no official explanation ever given for why what one paper called “a senior FAI source” was briefing that the manager was for the chop after the 1-6 hammering by Germany last October.
I doubt his being implicitly criticised by his own employers will prove a last straw moment for the Italian. He rode out the tempest last October and, barring some other significant twist in the tale, will probably ride out this latest squall too.
To that extent, it’s the same as it ever was: it will most likely be results on the football pitch, not headlines in the media, which will determine whether and when he stays or goes.
And so, onwards, stumbling, to Stockholm.
