Trap hails ‘golden point’

AFTER a game which pretty much defined the concept of backs to the wall, Giovanni Trapattoni was in tell-it-like-it-is mood in his post-match press conference in the Luzhniki Stadium.

“I think it’s impossible not to recognise that we have been lucky in this 90 minutes,” he began. “Physically they were superior to us, and it was obvious that many of them have been playing together at their clubs for a while, whereas this early in the season some of our players are still missing that rhythm that you get from playing regularly.

“But the determination and application of our senior players like Dunne, Duff, Andrews and McGeady inspired the younger players and it was this balance which gave us what I like to call a golden point.”