Trap call for cool heads

THE conventional route to international football success has always been to win your home games and avoid losing away.

But, when it comes to aggregate affairs, the significance of the away goal changes everything. Until Armenia scored in Dublin, Ireland’s record run of clean sheets might have been something to boast about but ahead of tonight’s European Championship play-off first leg in Tallinn, you can be sure the visitors would happily sacrifice one more if the choice was between a scoreless draw and a score draw.

Of course, no-one in the Irish camp is talking about anything other than a desire to win but, pragmatically, Giovanni Trapattoni knows returning to Dublin with at least a goal in the bag would be hugely advantageous.

That much was clearly evident as he repeatedly emphasised the point in the A. Le Coq Arena yesterday.

“We must look to score a goal,” said the manager.

“It’s very important to score a goal. I think we have opportunity to score a goal. And if we can score a goal, it’s 50% of the job done.”

To that end, Trapattoni will encourage his team to get off to a high-tempo start tonight but what is unclear, even at this late stage, is who will be tasked, alongside Robbie Keane, with the primary role of putting the ball in the net.

Because yesterday, for the first time in his reign as Ireland manager, Trapattoni named only 10 of his starting 11 at a pre-match press conference, leaving it open as to whether Simon Cox or Jon Walters will get the nod from the off. The manager denied this was a ploy designed to keep the Estonians guessing, dismissed any concerns about late fitness issues and then grew impatient with the media repeatedly questioning him on the subject. With Keane sitting immediately to the manager’s left, the thought popped into some minds that Trapattoni might still be reflecting on the fact Keane has previously gelled successfully with Cox.

But having named 10 out of 11, the whole issue, Trapattoni was at pains to insist, was hardly a major debating point, merely a matter of what he called “balance”, a question of who should start and who should come on for the second half.

Still, it surely tells us something about the high-stakes nature of tonight’s game that the veteran Italian has broken with his familiar pre-match habits for the first time since he took over the Ireland job. And precisely because a place at the European finals is now so close, Trapattoni is anxious the occasion doesn’t get to his players.

“As a manager, I’m not nervous but I am fully focused,” he said.

“When the game is as important as this, I don’t want to put more pressure on the players. I know they are already nervous and if the manager or the coach gives more pressure then maybe the players suffer. As a manager, you need to understand psychology, offer assurance and calm. In a situation like this, when the players are so determined, what we need most is cool heads and warm hearts.”

Trapattoni’s vast experience of big-time football is one reason to feel confident about Ireland’s chances, his proven ability — obvious in qualifying — to eke out the desired result, even against the odds, another. Of course, those odds now favour Ireland, an unaccustomed position for the boys in green to find themselves in but a logical reflection, nonetheless, of the gulf in quality and experience which separates them from Estonia.

None of which will matter of course, if Keane and company don’t bring all their qualities, individually and collectively, to bear over the two legs of a tie which holds out the possibility of such rich rewards for, lest we forget, both nations.

“It’s the first time that Estonia have participated in a play-off,” Trapattoni acknowledged.

“So maybe it’s the game of their life but it is the same for us. You don’t get many chances to qualify for the finals of a tournament and this time could be the last for some of the players and for me. In modern football, every Saturday or Sunday in England or Italy we see the little teams beat the big teams. That is football. It’s not a surprise. So we must treat this 180 minutes of football as if our life depended on it — the players, the manager, the Irish people. And I would be very proud if we could achieve this result.”

The talking is over, the action is about to begin: two games to define Trapattoni’s Ireland, two games to lay the ghost of Paris to rest, two games to reach the promised land of tournament football for the first time in 10 years.

It would be nice to think that Ireland might do the heavy lifting here in Tallinn and make Dublin on Tuesday a night of undiluted celebration rather than protracted agony. And if mistakes are kept to a minimum, chances aren’t squandered and Aiden McGeady and Damien Duff step up to the plate in the Estonian capital, then that scenario isn’t entirely off the agenda.

But Ireland being Ireland, you can’t help feeling in your bones that, over the course of the next 180 minutes — or more! — nerves will be jangled furiously before, hopefully, it all comes right on the final night.

Meantime, I reckon we’d all settle in advance for getting Trap’s 50% of the job done in Tallinn.