You Boys in Green Homepage YBIG Shop
Forum Home Forum Home : International : Republic Of Ireland
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - James Lawton on Trap.....
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login


Topic ClosedJames Lawton on Trap.....

 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
Message
FREEWHEELER View Drop Down
Robbie Keane
Robbie Keane
Avatar
sPICE UP YOUR LIFE Gwan MONROY

Joined: 29 Mar 2007
Location: Ireland
Status: Offline
Points: 24595
Direct Link To This Post Topic: James Lawton on Trap.....
    Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 3:40am
Dunphy and that other fookwit Roy Curtis should be made read this......
 
 

Time for Trap’s critics to live in the real world

By James Lawton
Friday April 03 2009

It is hard not to be amused, in a melancholy sort of way, listening to some of the revisionist theorising on the wisdom of appointing Giovanni Trapattoni.

Too old, too conservative, too unwilling to nurture and cajole the potential world-beaters Stephen Ireland, Andy Reid and Lee Carsley are some of the charges against the man who comes out of the most tricky stage, so far, of his unlikely ambition to carry his, how can we put it, workman-like team into the World Cup finals just two points behind the reigning champions Italy.

It is true, of course, that Italy were reduced to 10 men for most of the 1-1 draw in Bari, but which country in all of world football is better equipped to make a virtue rather than a killing handicap of such a numerical disadvantage? Upon leaving the cradle, Italian boys are confronted by the catechism and the challenge of learning to close down space, and not generally in that order.

Crisis

For nearly 90 minutes, Italy did not face a crisis so much as a call to their true vocation.

In this historically generated light, it was surely no wonder that Trapattoni scarcely concealed his exhilaration after the late Robbie Keane equaliser which kept the fantasy of automatic qualification on the table. Fantasy? How else is it possible to describe his challenge after even the most casual examination of the resources at Ireland's disposal?

Listening to some of his critics discuss all the fine nuances of selection facing Trapattoni, it is hard not to wonder from which planet they have travelled.

Do they really expect a man of Trapattoni's experience and achievements to surrender career-long values to the alter of Stephen Ireland's whim? Would you want to build your team around talent so eccentrically and selfishly housed? Would you want to go to the tightest of corners with nearly half a planeload of self-absorption? Or would you want to compromise your belief in what is valuable in the dynamic of a team for the sake of a player of Reid's largely unproven ability to inflict his gifts at the highest level? Let's face it, the obligation here is to make at least a little contact with reality.

Neither Reid nor Ireland is Wayne Rooney, the player whose less endearing qualities are being tolerated by Trapattoni's Italian compatriot Fabio Capello because of some profoundly impressive talent -- and a competitive spirit which blazed from him as a teenager threatening, before injury, to dominate the European championships of 2004.

So here, clearly, is a balancing of options, a team of enhanced discipline but one denied the often luminous presence of outstanding talent. For Trapattoni, there is no such dilemma.

He doesn't have much after he discounts the talent of Ireland and Reid, but he has something that is now too rich to squander -- a real sense of achievement every time you look at the qualification table.

There was more bleak, if unconscious, humour in the assertion of former national coach Brian Kerr yesterday that Trapattoni's campaign has been marked by good luck.

 

 

Let's hope such thinking doesn't permeate too much of a debate already festooned with outrageous examples of woolly thinking. If Old Trap is branded a lucky coach of Ireland, how do we re-visit the achievements of Jack Charlton?

The big man was also resolute in his thinking about how a team should be run but his approach was not exactly undermined by the quality of players at his disposal; any coach who could put the sublime quality of, say, Liam Brady in the take-it-or-leave-it category is operating among riches beyond the dreams of the current incumbent.

Cast your mind back through Big Jack's force and you see a range of talent into which only the supreme examples of Irish talent from earlier generations could have made guaranteed impact.

Kerr himself was not exactly untouched by good fortune when he discovered it suited Roy Keane's purpose to pull on the green shirt again. For Trapattoni, a Roy Keane, even operating on one leg, would have been not so much an asset as a treasure.

As it is, his leadership is supplied by another Keane, one whose persistence was valuable in Bari -- where Italy had won all their previous internationals -- but who in terms of competitive savvy has never begun to tread the same ground as his combustible namesake.

But, because he is an old pro, because he has standards hammered out in so many years of high-level campaigning, Trapattoni knows the ultimate obligation of his job. It is to make the best of what he has as he goes along, and certainly there is no inclination to accept the passivity that so often accompanies advancing years.

When the Italians went a man down, he swiftly adjusted his team, yanking off Andy Keogh and replacing him with Caleb Folan. It was not, with all due respect, the swapping of diamonds, but something the old man decided had to be done for a new balance in a new situation and not the least satisfaction of his homecoming, surely, was the fact that the substitute played vigorously and played a part in the Keane goal which could yet come to be weighed in gold.

Interestingly, we saw in Italy a welcome, not for an ageing son of Il Calcio, but a man due great honour for all that he represented. Trapattoni, apparently, was pleased by the evidence that respect for him had not dwindled in his absence. Certainly it must have made an agreeable change from the barbs so frequently fired off in his latest theatre of action.

Old Trap could tell himself, after all, that something is known about football in the native land where he rose so high. There, they know for sure the most fundamental ingredient of a winning football team. It is a shared commitment and a common goal, one that was achieved against more formidable talent as recently as the last World Cup.

It is something Trapattoni's Irish jury might wish to consider, just as soon as they beam themselves back to Planet Earth.

We'll never die, we'll never die, we'll keep the Green Flag flying high......Shamrock Rovers will never die, we'll keep the Green Flag Flying high. 19 Leagues and 25 Cups.....
Back to Top
Sponsored Links


Back to Top
The Count View Drop Down
Paul McGrath
Paul McGrath


Joined: 06 Feb 2007
Location: Romania
Status: Offline
Points: 17177
Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 3:53am
Roy Cutis Angry Roy Keane this, roy keane that.....blah blahy blah Dead



sorry will read article now FW
Back to Top
RogerMilla View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group
Avatar
#TEAMJAVIER #ENGANCHE

Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Location: Delaney Park
Status: Offline
Points: 34858
Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 4:11am
some serious plonkers out there in the journalistic world lads, we should tackle them in a YBIG expose .
 
Dion fanning on sunday wrote that france didnt have thierry henry when we played them in paris ?? i seem to recall given making a save from him , jaysis lads !
 
The first time the Devil made me do it. The second time I did it on my own.
Back to Top
FREEWHEELER View Drop Down
Robbie Keane
Robbie Keane
Avatar
sPICE UP YOUR LIFE Gwan MONROY

Joined: 29 Mar 2007
Location: Ireland
Status: Offline
Points: 24595
Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 4:18am
Originally posted by RogerMilla RogerMilla wrote:

some serious plonkers out there in the journalistic world lads, we should tackle them in a YBIG expose .
 
Dion fanning on sunday wrote that france didnt have thierry henry when we played them in paris ?? i seem to recall given making a save from him , jaysis lads !
 
 
Add Fanning to the Fookwit Brigade.........a morsel of googling from that smug git woulda told him that Henry played in Paris.  Muppet.
We'll never die, we'll never die, we'll keep the Green Flag flying high......Shamrock Rovers will never die, we'll keep the Green Flag Flying high. 19 Leagues and 25 Cups.....
Back to Top
t_rAndy View Drop Down
Robbie Keane
Robbie Keane


Joined: 06 Feb 2008
Location: Ireland
Status: Offline
Points: 26164
Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 4:36am
Roy Curtis, jaysus what a w**ker. Half the time it's hard to even understand his points he is making as he just goes off into metaphors
Back to Top
FREEWHEELER View Drop Down
Robbie Keane
Robbie Keane
Avatar
sPICE UP YOUR LIFE Gwan MONROY

Joined: 29 Mar 2007
Location: Ireland
Status: Offline
Points: 24595
Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 5:05am
Originally posted by t_rAndy t_rAndy wrote:

Roy Curtis, jaysus what a w**ker. Half the time it's hard to even understand his points he is making as he just goes off into metaphors
 
Yeah agree totally mate, he doesn't half go off on tangents of sh*te.  All the time.
We'll never die, we'll never die, we'll keep the Green Flag flying high......Shamrock Rovers will never die, we'll keep the Green Flag Flying high. 19 Leagues and 25 Cups.....
Back to Top
Ireland4ever View Drop Down
Ray Houghton
Ray Houghton


Joined: 24 Jan 2008
Status: Offline
Points: 4854
Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 7:56am

James Lawton is quality, love reading his pieces in the Indo. Another great one is Norman Hubbard (ESPN Website, its all English Premier League stuff but quality read every tuesday)

Oh yeah forgot to say, Roy Curtis is a cnut & an awful journalist. Does anyone actually enjoy reading his articles? Sunday World is gutter press at its worst.


Edited by Ireland4ever - 07 Apr 2009 at 7:58am
Back to Top
FREEWHEELER View Drop Down
Robbie Keane
Robbie Keane
Avatar
sPICE UP YOUR LIFE Gwan MONROY

Joined: 29 Mar 2007
Location: Ireland
Status: Offline
Points: 24595
Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 8:00am
I only buy the Sunday World to read Paul Williams' Crime reporting......but one has to read Curtis just to prove that my 3 year old nephew could write more sensibly than him.
We'll never die, we'll never die, we'll keep the Green Flag flying high......Shamrock Rovers will never die, we'll keep the Green Flag Flying high. 19 Leagues and 25 Cups.....
Back to Top
The GerK View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group

Razor you wanna pint?...2 minutes later

Joined: 09 Feb 2007
Status: Offline
Points: 20308
Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Apr 2009 at 8:02am
Lawton is a different class
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply
  Share Topic   

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.00
Copyright ©2001-2018 Web Wiz Ltd.