The last waltz

Given that the obituaries have already been written, the essential challenge facing Giovanni Trapattoni and the Ireland team here in Vienna this evening might properly be said to belong to the realms of the paranormal: to somehow prove that, in football at least, there can be life after death.

By the time they take the pitch in the Ernst Happel Stadium, they will already know from the outcome of the Kazkahstan-Sweden game in Astana whether that goal has been rendered more or less imaginable. But, in one sense, what happens in the earlier group game is irrelevant: even if their World Cup destiny remains out of their hands as the game in Vienna kicks off, Ireland will still have 90 minutes in which, if they are to confound their critics and earn a shot at redemption, they will have to show not only substantial powers of recovery but also a performance rooted in the kind of pride, spirit and sense of self-respect which would at least offer hope for the longer term future of Irish football, irrespective of the identity of the manager who will be calling the shots.

The heaviest burden, you suspect, will fall on the representatives of the post-Euro 2012 generation, players like Shane Long, Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy, none of whom, it has to be said, exactly covered themselves in glory against Sweden in Dublin.

Still, all three have earned the right to try and redeem themselves in tonight’s game, as part of an Ireland line-up which shows just two changes from the starting 11 against the Swedes. One of those alterations, of course, is enforced, Glenn Whelan’s absence through injury robbing Trapattoni of one of his go-to guys. However, there is nothing to placate those of us who would have been hoping – admittedly against hope – that, in what could effectively be his last throw of the dice, the Italian might have opted to replace Whelan by including the squad’s best passer of the ball from the start.

Instead, in an altogether more like-for-like reshuffle, it’s Paul Green not Wes Hoolahan who comes in for the Stoke man to partner James McCarthy in the centre of midfield. Although pedestrian, to put it kindly, in some of his appearances for Ireland, the Leeds midfielder has also been unfairly maligned; certainly, his work rate and snap in the tackle were a big part of Ireland’s impressive showing in Stockholm.

Explaining his decision in Vienna yesterday, Trapattoni said: “We have already said that we couldn’t play with three, four or five strikers when away. Austria showed us in Dublin that they are not a second or third-rate side. They are a tough team and we need balance. Hoolahan is more like a striker and usually plays behind striker for his club.”

The one selection call which might be said to border on the unpredictable is Trapattoni’s decision to give Anthony Pilkington his first competitive start ahead of James McClean and Robbie Brady. Impressed with the Norwich man’s debut off the bench against Sweden, Trapattoni said he hoped Pilkington could be a “beautiful surprise” tonight.

“I like him,” said the manager. “He’s an athletic player. He can also change position right or left. I tried in the last game to do this with McClean but it is not his optimal position. McClean plays well but Pilkington is different. He is a technical player who can also give us another chance to score.”

One other notable call by Trapattoni sees him placing his faith in Richard Dunne to get through two testing 90 minutes back to back in the week of the veteran’s return to competitive international football. But it says something about the oppressive context in which tonight’s game is being played, that the centre-half’s selection barely got a mention at the press conference.

Instead, inevitably, much of the focus was on the precarious position of the manager, not that the man in the hot seat was showing any signs of melting. Instead, he suggested that if he was John Delaney, he would ask Trapattoni to continue in his job – which sounded a bit like the manager giving the dreaded vote of confidence to himself. Trapattoni also expressed frustration at the limited amount of time he has with the players, saying he would love to have this international squad as a club side so that he could work with them daily on the training pitch.

And, almost as if for old time’s sake, he reheated one of his more provocative bits of loose talk by saying — in response to a query from an Austrian journalist — that there is “no league” in Ireland. Of course, everybody knows what he really means by that, but for a man whose popular approval has nosedived, it was a line of defence hardly conducive to helping his embattled cause, especially where easily offended supporters of the Airtricity League are concerned..

But then, just like old blue eyes himself, old Trap simply insists on doing it his way, even as he too seems set to face the final curtain. Although it’s also fully in keeping with his character that he still isn’t ruling out the possibility of an encore.

“Our only objective is to win,” he said. “Obviously for Austria also there is only this aim. Only with this result can we keep our hopes alive but we still have three matches to play and anything can happen. We must stay positive. The players know they must play with pride for our shirt, our team and our country. We must show you and the fans that what we have achieved until now was not a dream gone up in a puff of smoke. That it was reality.”

Which only leaves me to suggest that, as the moment of truth looms in the Ernst Happel Stadium, we could do worse than leave the last word to John Cleese in ‘Clockwise’ : “It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.”