SOCCER:PERHAPS THE punters out there should start to back Giovanni Trapattoni's heartfelt hunches with some of their hard-earned cash. There were certainly times last night in this Euro 2012 Pool B qualifier when his prediction of an Irish win seemed a little optimistic and yet his team made it safely through in the end.
Notwithstanding the games last autumn against rather more celebrated opposition, the team’s performance last night was one of the best the players have produced under him; not for the technical quality of the football, their passing or ball retention but for that favourite trait of his: their mentality, which was resilient, determined and focused on the job in hand more or less from the game’s very first moment to its last. Needless to say, the Italian was well pleased.
“As I said yesterday it wasn’t an easy game,” said the manager afterwards. “It was a good game, though. It was very hot and some of our players had only played one or two games this year so it was clear that it was going to be very difficult.
“I think over the 90 minutes they created a lot of difficult situations for our defence but for me we deserved to win because Robbie Keane had two or three very good chances.”
Asked if, given the performance of the locals, he would have settled for the draw, Trapattoni was clear that the answer was in his substitution.
“I chose the player (Keith Fahey for Aiden McGeady) to change at that moment. In the first half McGeady did well against their captain but I saw that he was tired. Then I chose to make the change. When you change, there is a situation and you make the decision.
“Of course, you can say it was lucky too,” he continued. “Yesterday I talked to you about whether McGeady was injured. Well, he played and worked very hard but in the end and we made the change. Lucky or not lucky we take the goal and the win.”
It wasn’t his only good call on the night, he reckoned, with the manager pleased that he had opted to leave his captain on the field despite his knee problem until Ireland had their goal.
“He has a little bit of an injury and that’s why I replaced him at the end. Sure, he missed a couple of chances but missing is okay. He played well and he created the opportunity for the goal.”
Trapattoni had, of course, predicted the Irish win but he is not sure that his side’s rivals for qualification will fare quite so well in Yerevan. “I saw the games from the last qualification, the World Cup and I saw some of the games in which Armenia played very, very well. I don’t think it will be easy for any team to come here.”
Ireland, on the other hand, go forward to what should, on paper at least, be a rather more straightforward win over Andorra in the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night. It is, the manager, acknowledged, not a bad position to be in ahead of the games against Russia and Slovakia next month.
“It’s a very, very big result for us,” he said. “It’s the start of the season, the start of the campaign and this will give us confidence for the games to come.”
Hero of the hour Keith Fahey reflected the team’s delight with their victory. “Yeah, it was great to get on, even better to get the goal, get us the three points,” he said
“I was half thinking of taking a gamble, because we got a couple of chances off long balls and that’s the way the ball bounced to me. It took an age to get to me and I just picked out a corner and lucky enough it went in.”
Fahey explained Trapattoni’s thinking in bringing him on: “It was to get in and get involved, in off the flick-ons, because there were some good long balls going in and we looked dangerous off them. It’s very tough, they looked very dangerous on the break. At set pieces as well, they had a couple of decent chances.”
YESTERDAY
Armenia 0 Rep of Ireland 1
Andorra 0 Russia 2
Slovakia 1 FYR Macedonia 0
NEXT ON THE LIST
Tuesday
Russia v Slovakia
Rep of Ireland v Andorra
FYR Macedonia v Armenia
