GROUP EIGHT CYPRUS v REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: There is significant evidence we have moved forward under Giovanni Trapattoni, writes Emmet Malone

GIVEN THE nature of his career, Giovanni Trapattoni’s contract renewal talks with the FAI should, in the event they are ever brought to a successful conclusion, attract attention from the sports media in half a dozen major footballing nations across Europe. In a minor one on the northwest tip of the continent, however, there is presumably a certain Irishman who is already intrigued by the way that talk of a new deal for the Italian has worked its way so far up the agenda.

In his one full campaign in charge, Brian Kerr guided his Irish side to almost precisely the same position Trapattoni’s team now finds itself in after seven group matches. Defeat by France at home in game eight, though, severely dented the Republic’s hopes of qualification for the 2006 World Cup in Germany and a narrow win here in Nicosia a month later wasn’t enough to dispel the notion that John Delaney was already looking to seize the opportunity to replace the Dubliner.

Under the man he chose, Steve Staunton, Ireland also amassed 13 points from seven qualification games but six of those had come courtesy of wins over San Marino, one of them far from impressive, and the reality is that the wheels had started to come off the Louthman’s bus as far back as the night here in October three years ago when a fatally flawed team selection contributed to a chaotic performance that ended in a humiliating 5-2 defeat.

Both managers received substantial payments to soften the blow of their departure, Kerr to maintain his silence and Staunton in lieu of the second half of a four year contract he should never have been given.

After the infamous bonus payment to Mick McCarthy, agreed at the World Cup in 2002 just before the signing of his last contract with the association, Delaney’s reluctance to rush headlong into an extension for Trapattoni would seem easy to understand. Defeat tonight could allow Bulgaria right back into a race for second place and failure even to make the play-offs would have many calling for the veteran Italian’s head.

In any case, with the coffers nearly empty, another unnecessary six-figure cheque to a manager would look more than a little extravagant just now.

The bonus Trapattoni would pocket for taking this Irish side to South Africa, on the other hand, would look like money well spent. From Delaney’s point of view, qualification would be of huge significance but even a place in the place-offs could be pointed to as progress and used in his ongoing sales pitch for the Lansdowne Road premium ticket scheme on which he has staked so much.

To date, there is certainly significant evidence that the team has moved forward under the Italian but it remains to be seen whether it has done anymore than regained the sort of status it had under Kerr which ultimately wasn’t good enough.

A win this evening would be both an important indicator of the extent to which the former Juventus boss has restored the confidence lost under Staunton, and a critical step towards guaranteeing the top-two finish that eluded his predecessor.

Trapattoni has made some controversial decisions with well regarded players like Lee Carsley, Joey O’Brien and Andy Reid discarded. Others, most notably Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews, have prospered under the Italian as he settled on a tactical approach that is as straightforward as, his critics would argue, it is uninspiring.

What seems clear, though, is that far from feeling constrained the players are reacting positively to the changes. Despite the loss of popular figures, there have been nothing like the rumblings of discontent out of the camp that helped to undermine the previous two managers and in the build-up to this game Richard Dunne, the only player to play every minute of every match Trapattoni has been in charge for, has given a reasoned but essentially ringing endorsement of a job well done by the 70-year-old so far.

“People say that we could be more positive, that we can beat teams but the reality is that we’re unbeaten in the group,” he said. “I know there’s been some criticism of the style of play, but there’s no point in us trying to play nice football all the time, getting the same results that we’ve been getting for the last few years and not getting near to qualification.

“For this campaign, it’s about Ireland getting to a World Cup. Maybe in future times when Ireland are at World Cups more regularly, we can concentrate on being more of an attractive team. For now it’s more about a determination to get there and I think that’s what’s been reflected in our play: That determination to go and get results.”

Three years ago, Dunne embodied the ill-discipline that enveloped the Irish as they unravelled at the GSP Stadium where his sending off for two needless bookings earned him the first of two suspensions.

This time around, the Dubliner has yet to see so much as a yellow card and the Irish between them have received just five bookings, compared to 15 and one sending off for the Italians and 14 and one for the Bulgarians.

“It’s not so much that he’s said be careful what you’re doing tackles wise,” said Dunne, “I just think that because of who he is and the way he is, there’s a lot more respect there and maybe the discipline among the whole group in the hotels and stuff has gone up and has carried itself out onto the pitch. There’s no talk before games that we can’t take yellow cards, sometimes you need to take yellow cards because it’s the right thing to do but the occasion has to be right.”

Chief amongst the criticisms levelled at Trapattoni is his choice of an overly cautious central midfield. Staunton, of course, paid dearly for selecting Damien Duff, Stephen Ireland, Kevin Kilbane and Aiden McGeady across the middle on the team’s last visit here with the Cypriots running riot through the centre as they gained the upper hand in the second half. By the time the Czechs came to Dublin four days later Carsley had been recalled and the side has not been laid out so positively since.

The protection afforded by Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews to the defence is, insisted Dunne, of critical importance to the team’s steady progress under the new manager. “I think that teams are finding that we’re a lot more difficult to beat,” he said.

“We’re still not a team that can go and score maybe four or five goals so we have to be strong somewhere. We’re always capable of nicking a goal, one or two, but throughout the groups for a long time really, we haven’t been a team that hammered people, it’s always winning by the odd goal. So to qualify we need to have a strong defensive record and I think from that point of view having the two central midfielder sitting a lot more has definitely helped.

“But there were opportunities against Bulgaria to change the way we were thinking,” he continued. “It’s happened a couple of times in the group where we scored and then dropped back to defend what we’d got. That’s not the manager telling us to do it,” the Aston Villa defender insisted: “It’s probably us just not wanting to lose games. We have to, when we get a goal, have the confidence to go and get another goal.

“I think the Italian game we showed that that’s the way we should play, really. We went a goal behind but we constantly went and went and went for it and we were unfortunate not to get the winner in the end. We should take a lot of confidence from that. Even though they were down to 10 men, we completely dominated that game.”

It would certainly be nice to see the team win convincingly tonight but there is no doubt Trapattoni would happily settle for the three points and another showdown in Dublin. Not since the visit of Holland in 2001 has Ireland won one of those big games and even that victory could only be described as deserved in the sense that the Irish grabbed their chance in the face of almost overwhelming Dutch superiority.

If Trapattoni can really engineer the strong finish to a campaign that eluded Kerr then it will be an achievement to rival almost anything achieved by his predecessors given the limitations of the group he has had to work with. Even then there would be serious work to be done, however. The return of Steven Reid would greatly bolster central midfield but there is a lack of depth in almost every area, particularly defence.

His options are clearly limited but Trapattoni, having used 21 players used in competitive games so far compared with 35 under Staunton, has still been a good deal more cautious about throwing peripheral players centre stage.

The work to bring the more promising ones through would probably have to be accelerated once the campaign was out of the way while a bridge or two being rebuilt with those who want to play would seem wise though unlikely. Also, a more active pursuit of some of those players now eligible under the new Fifa rules might help to deepen the squad if there really is going to be a finals tournament to be negotiated.

It’s a rather big “if”, though, and as Staunton might tell him, a bad night at the GSP can make long-term planning for a second qualification campaign seem like so much wishful thinking.