Trapattoni: Out of luck and running out of time

It was in the days before Ireland’s ill-fated World Cup play-off against France in November 2009 that Marco Tardelli was asked about Giovanni Trapattoni’s reputation as being a ‘lucky manager’. Tardelli is Trapattoni’s right-hand man, the sidekick who rides shotgun with the now-74-year old wherever he rolls.

Even in Trapattoni’s press conferences, Tardelli sits in, usually observing, but it has not been unknown for him to interrupt with strong defences of Trapattoni’s decisions when the manager is coming under strong scrutiny.
 

Tardelli was a fiercely competitive player and those same traits are not lost on those who have seen the 58-year old in action around the Irish set-up.
 

It was put to Tardelli, three and a half years ago now, about Trapattoni being regarded as ‘lucky’.
 

“When I am asked if Giovanni Trapattoni is a lucky manager I always say to remember what Napoleon said,”

Tardelli responded. “Napoleon claimed that his generals were lucky and clever and good, and Giovanni can be like that for Ireland now. We need to have him because he is a lucky general and a good one.”
 

On a soaking night in the Parisian suburb of St Denis some days later, Ireland’s hopes and dreams of making it to South Africa caved in on the night when Thierry Henry’s handball was beamed around the globe.

The subsequent sequence of events that had Sepp Blatter publicly bent in two laughing at a (serious, by the way) suggestion that Ireland be the ‘33rd team’ brought embarrassment to this island.
 

On Tuesday night, Ireland’s hopes of being on a plane to Rio for next year’s instalment of the Coupe du Monde receded to a point whereby the Boys in Green are now praying for something of a miracle. Divine intervention, in this instance, is unlikely to be sourced from a manager who, at 74, has lost the magical touch that once marked him out as that ‘Lucky General’ and who is now staring into something of an abyss in terms of holding onto his position as manager.
 

He will see out the campaign, though, but there will come a time as autumn is becoming winter when the grand old man will be gone. It makes sense that he will be given until the end of the campaign - especially considering the financial implications for the already cash-strapped FAI were they to bring his tenure to an end.
 

The shuddering blow on Tuesday came with 92 minutes on the watch. Jonathan Walters’ first half double, after Martin Harnik gave Austria an early lead, looked to be steering Ireland for three points that would have breathed new life into a campaign that looked dead.
 

The kiss of life was placed when a gritty nil-all draw was earned in Stockholm last Friday, but a late equaliser at Lansdowne Road on Tuesday by the Bayern Munich full-back David Alaba has surely now condemned Ireland to having a watching brief next summer and Trapattoni to, sooner rather than later, becoming ‘ex Republic of Ireland manager’.
 

The goal went against everything Trapattoni believes and preaches in the game. Ireland had a free-kick of their own deep in Austrian territory. Cheaply, possession was given up and Austria bagged an unlikely draw when Alaba’s shot careered off the shin of Sean St Ledger and beyond David Forde.

“The game was finished,” Trapattoni said.

“Obviously, I am not satisfied with this draw, but I have got to accept that we were missing a bit of experience. It’s not fair play to waste time but we should have done it there.
 

“But we hit the post through Shane Long and the [last] goal was a deflection, so I can say we have been a little bit unlucky - a little bit, but not much.”
 

It was not the first time that St Ledger had suffered last-ditch pain in Dublin. In 2009, he scored a late goal at Croke Park that gave Ireland a 2-1 lead over Italy, Trapattoni’s homeland. As Dublin still celebrated, Alberto Gilardino netted an equaliser that stunned a packed home audience into silence and disbelief.
 

In that campaign, which ended with the Paris play-off, Ireland also failed to beat Montenegro twice - drawing 0-0 both in Podgorica and Dublin.
 

Had Ireland taken the maximum from both games - which were, even against a team which drew with England earlier this week, winnable - and held out against Italy then they could have topped the group and gone to South Africa.
 

It is all ifs, buts and maybes now, but they were games that became victims of the defensive system adopted to the nth degree by the manager.
 

Trapattoni manages how he plays: defensively and cautiously. He was a renowned stopper in his time. In the 1969 European Cup final, he completely dominated Johan Cruyff (with 33 goals to his name that season) as AC Milan defeated Ajax 4-1.

In his early days as a manager, supporters of Juventus begun to get irritated with his stubbornness. He did then as he does now and persisted with the il gioca all-Italiana style - the system over the individuals. It was brutally torn to pieces by Hamburg’s Ernst Happel in the European Cup final, a game in which Tardelli played.
 

He sticks religiously to his own coaching manuals. Although his success at club level is almost unparalleled, he has not set the world alight either with Ireland or with Italy. Between 2000 and 2004, his ‘system’ failed Italy as it is now failing Ireland.
 

A resistance to use Wes Hoolahan on Tuesday night and to instead throw in the defence-minded Paul Green seemed like a cardinal sin. It was to protect what they had, a 2-1 lead, rather than to go and kill the game off with a third goal. It is not, of course the fault of that change that Ireland surrendered an advantage on Tuesday night. Trapattoni has made it plain that he does not rate Ireland to a great deal. Constantly referencing the great ‘famous teams’ he has managed,cTrapattoni insists that this Irish group is limited.
 

“Why? Why? You remember we are Ireland. You know we are not Germany or England and so on,” he responded after being asked about his own future.
 

“We are Ireland. We are (still) in a good position in the group. “We are still in the same position after tonight. We are still (battling) for the play-off with Sweden and Austria.”
 

Tuesday’s was not the first time Ireland’s dreams have been bruised and battered by a late concession: Think Davor Suker’s winner in Zagreb in 1999 or that awful night at the National Arena Filip II in Skopje later that year when Goran Stavreski headed an equaliser for Macedonia in the dying moments. Fast forward to Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s cracker that denied Ireland a famous win in Amsterdam in 2000, or there was Abbas Suan’s late equaliser for Israel or that period in 2007 when both Marek Cech (Slovakia) and Jason Koumas (Wales) sank Ireland with levelling goals just before Steve Staunton's curtain call.
 

In his post-match press conference in the bowels of Lansdowne Road on Tuesday night, Trapattoni’s explanation was the usual confusing and complex ramble.
 

Communication, or lack of it, has blotted Trapattoni’s copybook - just ask Andy Reid, Kevin Foley, Shane Long, Stephen Hunt, Liam Lawrence or Darron Gibson.
 

The chaos continues.

“He said this would be Giovanni's Waterloo,” Tardelli blasted to one reporter on Sunday at a press conference in Malahide. As the ABBA song of the same name says: ‘The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself’.
 

Where once Trapattoni could have been cast as Wellington, it now appears as if he has donned the mantle of Napoleon and on Tuesday night David Alaba might well have provided the Italian with his Waterloo moment after all.

“We are the same in the table. It has not changed,” insisted the defiant Trap who, it appears, has now run out of luck and is rapidly running out of time.
 

As Napoleon himself said: ‘From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.’