Trap seeks gain from the pain

IN the VIP lounge at Dublin airport last night, as he awaited his flight home to Milan, the emotion of the preceding 24 hours finally got to Giovanni Trapattoni.

After earlier appearing in front of the live television cameras at a press conference devoted almost exclusively to the controversy surrounding Wednesday night’s extraordinary game in Paris, Trapattoni now found himself in rather more intimate conversation with a small group of football journalists when he was asked if, like many of his players, he had himself been tearful after the final whistle in the Stade de France.

His eyes suddenly filling up, the 70-year-old Italian quietly replied: “Do you want me to cry again?”

The acute disappointment felt by the manager at his side’s heroic failure to qualify for the World Cup finals was reinforced by the realisation that the raging fury about the illegality of the French goal in Paris had almost completely overshadowed the best Irish performance of Trapattoni’s reign – and, indeed, one of the greatest Irish performances of all time.

“As I said to the players, they must be very proud,” he said. “They played very well and deserved to win. I said to Marco (Tardelli) that we had three great chances – John (O’Shea), Robbie (Keane) and Damien (Duff). In the two games we had three chances in each game, although in Dublin France played very well. But over the two games we deserved to win.”

Trapattoni said that he would have felt confident of Ireland prevailing had the game gone all the way to penalties.

“Great players like (Diego) Maradona and Roberto) Baggio have missed penalties,” he observed. “But I discussed with Marco about the penalties and, with Shay Given, we felt we had a great chance. Our mentality is stronger (than France’s) and we don’t let emotions affect us. We have cool heads.”

Over the course of what had been a long and draining day, Trapattoni had done well to keep his own cool head in the face of the increasingly heated response to Thierry Henry’s hand in that decisive French goal.

Ireland would be prepared for a replay, he said, and he backed the FAI’s appeal to FIFA, but he also made it abundantly clear that he felt there was no real chance of such a game taking place.

However, he insisted that, in the light of the earlier controversy about FIFA’s decision to seed the play-off draw, it was important for the future of football to take a stand on the issue and to use the opportunity to ask a number of searching questions about related matters, including the officiating of games and the potential application of video technology.

“We have lost the credibility of the sport and we have to begin another era,” he said. “There are now so many interests revolving around football such as commercial aspects. This (controversy) should be about the opportunity to decide that in the future we change the rules. Because we now have television cameras behind the goals and all around the pitch. There are too many things such as wrong offside decisions during a game. This is a good opportunity to change the rules immediately.’’

While Trapattoni did not accuse referee Martin Hansson of deliberately turning a blind eye to Henry’s handball – and, tellingly, Liam Brady has described the Swedish official as being “distraught” when he finally saw a television replay of the goal that shouldn’t have been – the manager said it was understandable that people would be suspicious given the whole background to the tie.

“I want to know what was the criteria for the draw when the change was made two months ago,” he said. “When you see a number of things then you start to wonder. When there are so many precedents and so many coincidences you wonder whether (the referee’s failure to disallow the goal) was a genuine mistake or not.’’ Mindful that the draw for the qualifying rounds of the 2012 European Championships takes place in February, the Italian went on: “If I were you (in the media), I would go to FIFA and ask. We need to know by what criteria the referees are being chosen on and by which criteria the draw is being made.”

Earlier in the day, Trapattoni had refused to blame Thierry Henry for his role in a goal which seems to have, overnight, transformed the former Arsenal man into Public Enemy Number 1 across the football world.

“It wasn’t up to Henry to say, ‘I touched it with my hand’,” said Trapattoni. “It’s not Henry’s task to say that he handled it. I’m sure if the referee had asked Henry, I’m sure he would have admitted to it. But it’s not the job of the players to tell them. It’s not basketball. It’s different.”

And, rare among the footballing fraternity, not least in France, Trapattoni also displayed a respectful attitude towards his victorious counterpart, Raymond Domenech.

“He was very kind,” he reported.

“He said, ‘Giovanni, in football things happen. There are no criminals in this situation’.”