Trapattoni: managers can no longer rule by fear

GIOVANNI Trapattoni believes that the days when managers like himself and Alex Ferguson could rule by fear are long gone.

“This can never work any more,” said the Ireland manager in the build-up to Saturday’s first leg World Cup play-off game against France.

“If you go back to 30 years ago, maybe people like Alex Ferguson and myself could rule by fear, but players don’t care for this any more.

“You are looking for respect and that brings discipline, but this does not come by making players scared of you. It is all about knowing how to pull the right strings in a player.”

Trapattoni also says that the mentality of the Irish squad was “not right when I arrived”. And asked in an interview in ‘World Soccer’ how one goes about changing the mentality of a team, he replied: “Tell them not to fear any opponent. There is no reason why this Ireland team should not do better than it did in recent years.

“All the players are working in the strongest league in the world: the Premier League. They would not be there unless they had top quality and I told them from the start not to accept the established order in international football. So, when you go to play Italy, don’t believe they are better than you before a ball has been kicked.”

As was reported when the FAI awarded the manager an extension to his contract, Trapattoni confirmed that he took a pay-cut when agreeing to stay on in the Irish job for a further two years.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I understand the current economic situation, so I said to the FAI we will take less money, no problem. All that mattered to me was they were satisfied with the job we were doing. We could have said ‘thank you’ and gone home, but we wanted to continue the work we had started and I am happy with the new agreement.”

Trapattoni, who will take charge of the Irish squad for the week’s first training session in Malahide this morning, also told the magazine that the believes his side can overcome France in the play-off.

“We have already come through a tough group so why not upset the expectations again?” he said.

Meanwhile Italy boss Marcello Lippi has denied that Raymond Domenech asked his advice about Ireland in Milan last week.

Domenech claimed that Lippi declined to give him much information about Ireland because he didn’t want Giovanni Trapattoni to overhear their conversation in the San Siro Stadium during AC Milan’s Champions’ League match with Real Madrid on Tuesday.

But Lippi yesterday contradicted the French manager’s version of events.

“Domenech didn’t ask my advice about Ireland,” he told L’Equipe. “We just talked about the Milan-Real Madrid match. Arrigo Sacchi was sitting between me and Domenech in the stand. And just beside me there was also Alberto Zaccheroni.”

Zaccheroni, like Sacchi a former manager of Milan, confirmed that Trapattoni and Domenech greeted each other at last week’s match, a game which ended 1-1.