Did Ireland get the group of death?

Yes, says Jonathen Wilson

Rankings point to early end for Ireland’s Euro adventure

AT LEAST the Republic of Ireland aren’t Denmark. It would have been unthinkably difficult had the Republic of Ireland been drawn in Group B, but coming out of their pot third rather than second has only done Giovanni Trapattoni’s side the slightest of favours.

It couldn’t have started much worse; of all the seeds, the one to avoid was surely Spain. It is rare for the best team to win a tournament — luck plays a bigger part than many like to admit — but there can be little doubt that this Spain side was the best team both at the Euros and at the World Cup. In both tournaments they faltered only once — against Italy at the Euros, when they needed penalties, and against Switzerland at the World Cup when they lost 1-0 — and for the rest of the tournament, they played calm, controlled possession football.

Some would perhaps call it dull — and particularly at the World Cup, there was a sense that, sick of playing teams who packed their defences, Spain were happy to win games by a single goal, but there was a beauty and an efficiency about their attrition: wear the opponents down with flurry after flurry of passes and wait for the mistake, relatively safe in the knowledge that, without the ball, the opponent cannot score.

True, Spain have lost four friendlies in the past year, conceding four against both Argentina and Portugal, and the suspicion is that the constant churn of travel as their football federation arranges bizarrely far-flung friendlies to make the most of the cache of being world champions has sapped at their hunger and enthusiasm, but it will surely return in tournament play.

It’s not even as though this is a side growing old together.

Spain won the European U21 and U19 tournaments this summer; their strength in depth is formidable they could even afford to lose three or four of their regular first-choice side.

Ireland’s first game, against Croatia, is a must-win. A year, even six months ago, that would have looked a relatively kind draw, but the awesome way in which Croatia dismissed Turkey in the first leg of their play-off was indicative of how good they are when Ivica Olic is in the side.

His return after a lengthy injury lay-off gave them a focal point, somebody for their clutch of creative midfielders to play off. Similarly the 3-1 win over Israel in October demonstrated how well Luka Modric has adapted to the role he has had to take on since the retirement of Niko Kovac.

But it was the tactical astuteness Croatia showed in that play-off in Istanbul that will unnerve other sides. They had only 29% of possession, and yet managed 16 chances to Turkey’s two.

Having taken an early lead, they sat back and clinically picked off their opponents on the break; they are a team in which it will almost certainly be fatal to fall behind.

Italy, of course, means memories of New York in 1994. Perhaps lightning will strike twice, and Trapattoni is as well-placed as anybody to understand how the Azzurri play. This, though, is a much improved Italy to the side that spluttered its way to a first-round exit at the World Cup in South Africa. They are one of those four sides to have beaten Spain, and they did so not with the sort of stifling play that might have been expected, but with a fluency based around the use of Andrea Pirlo as a deep-lying playmaker.

Although the two forwards who combined so excitingly in that game, Antonio Cassano and Giuseppe Rossi, are unlikely to be in Poland, having suffered a stroke and knee ligament damage respectively, Mario Balotelli, Alessandro Matri and Giampaolo Pazzini aren’t shabby replacements, and there is always the option of the perennially prolific Antonio De Natale should Cesare Prandelli decide he can countenance a player in his mid-30s in the squad.

But perhaps the most worrying aspect of all is that the total of the other three side’s positions in the world rankings is just 18.

That means that in each game Ireland will be facing a side ranked, on average, 15 places above them.

Even Denmark are yielding an average of just seven places. This is tough. Very tough. Over to you Trapattoni.

No, says Miguel Delaney

Drawing world’s big hitters will bring out best in Trap’s troops

OKAY, let’s be honest. Dressing this group up as anything but a nightmare is a task almost as difficult as that which Ireland will face.

Throughout Giovanni Trapattoni’s tenure, his team have had the most trouble against fluid, passing teams that play three men in midfield. As barely needs to be stated, Spain are the ultimate exponents of this as well as being the best team in the world over the past four years and one of the finest of all time.

And, in terms of that troubling playing style, Croatia also aren’t too far behind. A resurgent Italy are also increasingly improving along those lines.

But when you actually start to break the individual challenges down – as Trapattoni’s team will have to – there are a fair few more positives than these three teams’ recent reputations point to.

To begin with, quite literally, there’ll be a true sense of occasion the moment the tournament starts.

After 10 years waiting to qualify, there’ll be no phoney war – no sense of anti-climax as might be the case if Ireland were playing Greece or the Czech Republic. Just like with the group Jack Charlton got in the country’s first ever championship in 1988, this is what a big tournament is meant to feel like.

Pitting themselves against such quality opposition is exactly why the players want to appear at such tournaments. They want to test themselves against the best, to taste the very top of their profession. They’ll have to now. And it can often bring elevated responses.

As regards Ireland’s style of play and the actual difficulty of those three teams, too, much of the issue here is down to perception – as it has been throughout Trapattoni’s time.

Over the last three and a half years, Ireland have mostly taken on teams they have been expected to beat or at least take the game to. And that includes a slackening Slovakia and an erratic Russia.

The problem, of course – and the source of so much debate – is that Trapattoni simply does not set his team up in such a way. Never has.

But here’s the real bonus: instead, he sets his teams up to take on the best teams.

Ireland won’t have to alter their system in order to play Spain like so many teams have done over the few years; and Switzerland exemplified in the last World Cup with that 1-0 win.

They already play that way.

So, to a degree, the crunch match will be played on Trapattoni’s terms as much as Spain’s.

And the fact is that such an approach is beginning to pay increasing dividends against the world champions. They may retain the same quality of overall squad as between 2007-10 but, as recent results have proved, they don’t have the same hunger or intensity that characterised that supreme unbeaten run.

It’s possible that repeat victories may have naturally removed their vigour. As we’ve seen against England, Argentina and Portugal, their possession no longer produces the same penetration.

Certainly, they went into the 2010 World Cup in much better form than they are in now. Indeed, as good as they have been, it’s even possible they have fallen behind Germany.

Spain might not be there for the taking, but they are there to be tested and frustrated.

Likewise, Croatia aren’t quite the creative force they were in Euro 2008. The loss of a fully-fit Eduardo seemed to terminally constrain their style of play.

That was reflected in the fact that they were atrocious in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers and struggled to reach this tournament, not to mention their prosaic dull draw in Lansdowne Road in August.

And while it might be dangerous to look too much into friendlies, Ireland’s victory over Italy in June only strengthened the feeling that Trapattoni has something of a sign over his native country.

So, sure, it might be a difficult draw for Ireland. But it isn’t necessarily a depressing one.