The light and dark of Luz

FORGET Jane Fonda – what the world needs now is a Giovanni Trapattoni workout DVD.

We’ve seen the odd memorable sight during our week on the Algarve – a little mangy mutt carefully using a pedestrian crossing to negotiate a busy road in the town of Lagos, probably takes the, er, dog biscuit – but perhaps nothing quite as startling as the spectacle of the new manager of Ireland going through his personal warm-down routine after a squad training session yesterday.

While the team’s fitness guru, Fausto Rossi, put the players through their paces – a state of the art business which at times involved moulding them into almost sculptural poses – Trapattoni lay flat on his back on the turf away to one side and proceeded to launch into a flurry of bends, stretches, press-ups and whatever you wouldn’t be having yourself, even if you were half the age of the 69-year-old Italian.