International Football Betting: Is Trappattoni the right man for Irish football

Internationals / Dan Fitch / 23 May 2008 / Leave a Comment

Giovanni Trappatoni takes charge of the Irish national team for the first time in this friendly. Dan Fitch believes the Serbians will prove a stiff test for the Italian, and has doubts that a foreign manager is the correct policy.

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it". So said Winston Churchill, in one of his many quotes that he paraphrased in an attempt to make himself seem clever and witty. Still he had a point, even if it wasn't originally his own and this quote came to mind when I heard about the appointment of Giovanni Trapattoni as Republic of Ireland coach.

Cast your minds back to when Sven first took over England and tricked us all into thinking that he was really sophisticated with his multiple substitutions, 5-1 victories over Germany and Chris Powell.

But it wasn't just the English that Sven hoodwinked. When Scotland needed a new manager shortly afterwards, they copied our brilliant idea and brought in their own manager of continental origin.

To say that this didn't work out as they had hoped is an understatement. Only the constantly rising price of cooking oil depresses a Scotsman more than what are darkly termed 'The Berti Vogts years'.

Scotland have since learnt from their mistakes and now only appoint managers that can sing all the words to The Krankees' Fan Dabi Dozi. But have the Irish now fallen into same the trap of hiring a downmarket version of the England boss?

Trapattoni has an undeniably great record, but so did Herbert Chapman and nobody would give him an international job these days. Despite his success at club level, Trapattoni was a disaster as the coach of Italy. In the 2002 World Cup they slumped to defeat against South Korea (albeit hindered by an abysmal performance by the match official) and then in Euro 2004 failed to even get through the group stage.

If Trapattoni wasn't able to achieve success with Maldini, Del Piero and Totti at his disposal, it does beg the question as to how he'll cope with the limited Irish squad. Since the Italian job, Trapattoni was a success at Benfica, but was then sacked from VfB Stuttgart and has recently been in charge of Red Bull Salzburg.

So with nobody else banging down the door for the 69 year old, his appointment showed how desperate the Irish have become. He certainly isn't a long term option and it may transpire that his deputy Liam Brady, will be groomed for the role.

Brady will certainly have his work cut out as an interpreter, if Trapattoni's spell in charge of Bayern Munich is anything to go by. Attempting to speak the native tongue during a press conference, he famously came out with the comment "Diese Spieler waren schwach wie eine Flasche leer!", which translates into the English, "Those player were weak like a bottle empty".

Ireland of course, have a number of players that could be described as being weak like a bottle empty and badly require some organisation. The Staunton era was dealt a blow when Bobby Robson became too ill to continue in his role as mentor. This was a tough job for someone without any managerial experience and from a players' point of view, it must have been difficult to respect a grown man that insists on being called 'Stan' when it's not even his real name.

Trapattoni takes charge of the Republic for the first time this Saturday, when they host Serbia. In the last week the squad have been involved in some practice matches against Portuguese club sides and now gratefully welcome back the likes of Richard Dunne and Robbie Keane, who will provide much needed Premier League quality to a squad that is now host to a large percentage of Football League players.

The likes of Given, Dunne and Keane could form a strong central spine, but the Irish are without a central midfield of Premier League quality, let alone international. Trapattoni has talked about the adaptability of Keane being key to Ireland employing different formations, which would point to a defensive outlook against the better sides.

The Republic won't need to sit back on Saturday and are [2.34] favourites, with Serbia [2.9] and the draw [3.3]. They'll want to get off to a good start, but the Serbs are no mugs and a draw is the likely result.