Trapattoni delights in display full of ‘heart’

TEN goals and none conceded in four games — you could call it a summer of deep content for Giovanni Trapattoni’s Ireland.

In the press conference room of Standard Liege’s home ground last night, the grand old man of Italian football came in to talk us through the latest and, in some ways, most astonishing of those results.

It might have been “only a friendly” — not that the fiercely competitive Trapattoni would ever use such a phrase — but the 2-0 win over his homeland is the kind of eye-catching result which would reverberate around Europe and only enhance his reputation in both countries.