Failure not an option in final summer exam

WORLD CUP QUALIFYING GROUP C:

The last time Giovanni Trapattoni led his Irish team into a game against the Faroe Islands, there were many declaring he’d already flunked after a particularly brutal German inquisition while, according to one mysterious FAI source at the time, the manager was even on the brink of being expelled, irrespective of how his team might fare in the North Atlantic.

Recalling that fraught couple of days, Trapattoni was his usual philosophical self yesterday, observing with a smile that with victory the gaffer is “a god” but, after defeat, it’s easier to get rid of a manager than a team.