Locker Room: Isn't it odd when you believe something to be true in your head without ever examining it and then hold the belief up to the light and just burst out laughing.

When I was growing up, for instance, I believed that my favourite song by the Ramones was a subversive little number called I Wanna Piece of Cake. As in: Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go/I wanna piece of cake/Nothin' to do and no where to go-o-oh/I wanna piece of cake.

It took till when I grew to an age where I had become depressingly sentimental enough about the music of my youth to buy my first Ramones album to find that the song was actually called I Wanna Be Sedated. Well, that too.

I had a friend who would chime in happily whenever The Eagles launched into one of their big hits, "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? You've been outright offensive, for so long - now."

It took quite a while to persuade him that the lyric actually stated, "you've been out riding fences."

It was cruel but, hey, he had to be told; it's a doggie dog world after all.

I mention these things because I was going to begin today's column (yet again!) with a quote from Confucius.

I mean is there any aspect of the FAI's manifold endeavours and escapades that Confucius did not chart and consider?

Oddly though, when I typed out the shiny little pearl of wisdom and appended the attribution to old Con, I realised I am a halfwit.

I still believe it to be quite true that "a peasant will stand on the top of a hill for a very long time with his mouth open before a roast duck will fly in", but will concede that it is a thought which is unlikely to have been expressed or indeed texted by Confucius, who lived from 551 to 479 BC, not a notably good era for roast duck.

Still, I like the roast-duck proverb and wonder if the Football Association of Ireland aren't the peasant who stood on the hill for a long time with their mouths hanging slackly only for an elderly Italian duck, ready roasted and lean, to fly in.

Are we to believe that after an epic selection process - which in fairness only the FAI could have staged with such comedic panache - we may be on the brink of appointing a manager who has (possibly quite literally) forgotten more about coaching than any of the other candidates mentioned will ever know?

The Geezer has nine league titles won in four different countries, a European Cup, a Cup Winners' Cup, three Uefa Cups, the European Super Cup and two Italian Cups.

The last league title was won last year in Austria.

I am willing to concede that winning the Austrian league title is possibly no greater a feat than winning the O'Byrne Cup, but you can only beat what you play, and the triumph suggests a mind still in love with the game.

Trappa may be 68 and his last Serie A title may have been won in 1989 (when did we get so sniffy about this? Venables's last title of any sort was in 1985) but in the last 11 years he has won a German, Portuguese and Austrian title as well as managing Italy (cough, cough, not too successfully) at the World Cup of 2002 and the Euro Championships of 2004.

He choked himself with caution on each occasion, having got the Italians there, but bounced back after his departure to lead Benfica to their first Super Liga title in 11 seasons.

If he is still as engaged by football and as energetically lucid about it as his results suggest we are at an intriguing moment in Irish football history.

Two questions hang in the air. He's 68 and a legend. Why in the name of all that is profane would he want to get into bed with the FAI? And, uhm, has he met our players, our cellar-load of whines that don't improve with age?

Forced to consider these things, I find myself suddenly and ardently pro-Trapattoni.

If I am to go on in this job I need Giovanni. I have lived as a hack through the late Charlton era and the scoreless draw in Liechtenstein. I have survived Saipan and been at hand for the crucifixion of Brian Kerr and the disintegration of The Gaffer. I, a gnarled, hoary old veteran like Trappa himself, have seen it all.

Still I am mesmerised by Giovanni. He is the future. Honestly, after all these years I thought I had forever lost the heart for managers' post-match press conferences. Cliches, I am sure, are only supposed to be taken as part of a balanced diet, but I have consumed so many as to become toxic.

But hark. Trapattoni promises to be instantly entertaining. You have to check out one of his greatest hits (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqp64q7khmw) to realise that this is what we all need. This is what the Italians would call primo press conference.

At one point in this wonderful operatic rant Trappa denounces his players at Bayern for complaining more than they play. This alone would be manna from heaven at any press conference in Croke Park, but then, uniquely and brilliantly, Trapattoni goes on to name names!

You might argue that this was 10 years ago and that at 68 perhaps the great man's fires have gone out. Stop. Desist. Everything you know is wrong.

While you are on YouTube check out the stylings of Trappa's 2007 monster hit as manager of Red Bull Salzburg. The mere translation of it here denies you a key theatrical dimension but is well worth a go.

"Our training is strong," says Trappa as part of his lively soliloquy, "is modern. Training wins also. I have 21 trophies. There is blah, blah, blah from you. Fools write who know nothing. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

"I can understand people paying. No problayma. Let whistle. Is right. Have lost. But run 90 minutes! I am a professional in psychology. We train, make fitness. You people always make qua, qua, qua. Shit fools!"

So true. We always make qua, qua qua. And in the business of guessing a new manager we have made more qua, qua, qua than in living memory.

I personally have taken colleagues at their word again and again, and if Trappa turns out to be something more than the latest exotic rumour to play the strip the modest sum I will collect at the bookies is offset by large losing bets on Roy Hodgson, Martin Jol, Philippe Troussier, Graeme Souness, El Tel, El Cordoba, LL Cool J, Billy Davies, Billy No Mates, Liam Brady, Gezza Houllier, Gilesie, Glenn Hoddle, Big Sam, Fat Sam, Son of Sam, Big Mick, Jean Tigana, Lawrie Sanchez, Didier Deschamps, Didier Desrunnersup, Paul Jewell, Big Ron, a long-shot punt on the dream team of Aldo and Stapo and several get-out bets on assorted rinky-dinks whose names I have been asked to keep confidential for the sake of my own dignity.

We are peasants. We have been standing on the hill for a long time with our cakeholes open. Either a spiv or a roast duck is about to fly in. Suddenly I am not indifferent anymore.