IN THE stadium of St Nicholas the presents came. From the congregation, the offering of an adoring welcome for Giovanni Trapattoni. From the clouds, the gift of familiar rain, writes TOM HUMPHRIESin Bari.
From the world champions Italy, the present of an extra man for 88 minutes of World Cup football. Not enough. Not enough we thought. And then, late on, the tribute of confusion in a jaded Italian defence. The ball met by Robbie Keane’s outstretched leg. Hope.
Ireland’s World Cup campaign has an uphill struggle from here on in, but this point gained against the grain on foreign soil could be invaluable.
The action was frontloaded, it seemed. Just after the kick-off, Kevin Kilbane flattened Giampaolo Pazzini. The Italian, somewhat taken aback at the effrontery, found himself on the far side of the pitch a minute of two later and let his elbow make hefty contact with the face of John O’Shea. The Waterford man spouted crimson. The Italian saw red in the shape of a small card brandished by the referee.
Interesting we thought. Soft oul’ night. Ten Italians. Give it a lash, Giovanni. Eight minutes later the sublime Andrea Pirlo made a little poetry with Fabio Grosso. The cross came through Paul McShane’s legs and Vicenzo Iaquinta placed it in the Irish net with an assassin’s cool.
And so the best laid plans of mice and Trap. The normally cautious Italian had little option but to defy his nature and throw on a third attacker. It was nice that the third attacker was Caleb Folan, the muscular Hull City striker, but there was no sign of trembling from the Italians when the big man lumbered on. Yet, Ireland sensed possibility as the ball scudded and skidded on the greasy surface.
And two minutes form time salvation came. Robbie Keane, once rejected by Italian football after a brief sojourn there as a teenager, had the pleasure of deflating almost an entire stadium.
One of those famous draws. And that was the difference. Nerve. Trapattoni and his counterpart Marcelo Lippi, the man who succeeded him as Italian national manager and went on to deliver the World Cup to a slightly surprised Italian nation, stood down the sideline from each other for 90 minutes looking like two old prizefighters gone grey. Two points out of a six in the last five days is poor enough, but last night, back on home turf, the emperor Trap was wearing his clothes again.