A tale of two Reids

THE morning after the night before, and Giovanni Trapattoni had his happy face on when he met the media in a city centre hotel yesterday to review the narrow win against Cyprus and reflect on where his Irish team goes from here in World Cup qualifying Group 8.

“After the victory, a beautiful day, no?” he began. “The sun is also shining – a big surprise in Dublin.”

But it didn’t take long for a little cloud to darken his vision, the vexed question of Andy Reid was the reason for the change in mood. Not that the manager ever came close to exploding in the manner of his Bayern Munich rant made famous on YouTube, but while he retained his good humour throughout the proceedings, the subject of the Sunderland midfielder’s continued omission saw Trapattoni grow louder, more animated and even revert to Italian in order to make himself more clearly understood through his interpreter.