Sacrifice so vital in Trap mantra

Irish football is closer to Giovanni Trapattoni’s vision of how the game should be played than the Italian realises

“This is an Italian concept that’s within us, inside of us, the result is all that counts, centre-forward or not. In Ireland there is no league, most players play in England. I do not know why he does not understand. If you have to be here rather than there, you have to be here, not there.”

The speaker was Giovanni Trapattoni, in a brief Italian aside to an Italian journalist during an Ireland press conference this week. “He” in this instance was me. I was the slow learner who, in Trap’s opinion, had failed to grasp some obvious concepts, forcing him, with the air of a slightly exasperated yet still patient teacher, to explain the lesson all over again.