Our Perspectives
2010 - The year of the Trap
06 July 2009
Kevin Daly
Fast forward, if you will, to 9.30pm on Wednesday, October 14th 2009 in Croke Park, Dublin. The referee’s final whistle blasts around the stadium signalling unbridled joy. The Republic of Ireland have just beaten Montenegro in their final game to top World Cup Qualifying Group 8 and qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Finals in South Africa. The mighty Italians and Montenegrins have been slain in the space of five days to guarantee automatic qualification for the World Cup Finals. It’s been a remarkable and memorable week for Irish football. Croke Park is at fever pitch as the players complete their lap of honour and soak up the emotion flowing down from the stands. All the while, a wily Italian dressed in a sharp suit keeps his distance but bounds around the famous ground with the enthusiasm of an excited teenager, arm in arm with his assistant and close friend Marco Tardelli. Trappatoni and Tardelli call it their greatest achievement in football and who could argue with them? They have brought together a group of players once famously described by an eminent football pundit as “ragball rovers” and guided them to the great festival of football – the World Cup Finals.
Wishful thinking or could it be a dream about to come true? Three games from glory or three games from disaster? All will be revealed over the next four months. The line between success and failure is wafer thin.
With each day that passes, the appointment of Giovanni Trapattoni in May 2008 as the successor to Steve Staunton as Irish football manager is looking like the shrewdest piece of business the Football Association of Ireland has done in many a year. With three games to go, Ireland lies in second place in Group 8, just one point behind World Champions Italy. Unbeaten in seven competitive games under Trapattoni’s stewardship, including three tricky away trips to Georgia, Italy and Bulgaria, qualification remains very much in Ireland’s hands.
Considering the limited squad at Trapattoni’s disposal and the injury problems encountered at various junctures throughout the campaign (Stephen Reid, Steve Finnan, Damien Duff, and Aiden McGeady have all missed vital qualification games through injury), it is remarkable that Ireland still controls its own destiny in a group containing the World champions. Despite criticism from a number of quarters around team and squad selection, substitutions and Stephen Ireland, Trapattoni has remained focused and steadfast in his football philosophy, his belief in the players he puts on the pitch to do the job and in his belief that Ireland can top this group and qualify for South Africa at the expensive of his native country.
A return to Nicosia, the scene of Ireland’s embarrassing 5-2 defeat to Cyprus in October 2006, the low point of the Staunton era, is the first step on the home strait to qualification. Securing three points in Cyprus would be a major boost to the squad, psychologically more than anything. A line needs to be finally drawn under the disastrous Staunton reign and no better place to bury the hatchet than in Cyprus.
Victory against the Cypriots will set the boys in green up for a make or break week in October where they will face Italy and Montenegro in Dublin over five days. Nine points from these three games will almost certainly guarantee top spot in the group and secure qualification for our first World Cup finals appearance since the ill-fated 2002 trip to the Far East. From Mainz to Bari to Sofia, it’s been a long road so far for the boys in green and their loyal band of supporters. A sliver of light may be appearing at the end of the tunnel however.
In Trap we trust.
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