Just thought we'd begin the run in to the games with a good article (in my opinion) below:
http://www.football365.com/f365-says/7299220/F365-Says
Not everyone will agree with it but it pretty much echoes my sentiments.
Let's hope he's correct.
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Here is a man who has managed AC Milan, Juventus (twice), Inter, Bayern (twice), Fiorentina and Italy. In nearly 1200 games he has lost approximately 230. He has won 23 major titles spread over the continent of Europe. Only Alex Ferguson and Jock Stein have won more trophies. He also had an enormously successful playing career. He has been involved in football for over 50 years at the highest level.
Think about that, those from whom I have heard the error of Trap's ways so vehemently criticised. Twenty years before you were born he was winning major trophies. Again, just really, really, think about that. But your knowledge extends beyond such trivial representations of facts. Sure, statistics can prove anything, right? You have an innate understanding, cultivated through years of five a-side kickarounds down the park, pub teams, astro-turf tournaments and involvement in grassroots football on a hungover Saturday morning, trying not to be kicked up in the air by some mouth-breathing culchie taking a break from the GAA. Let's not forget your commitment to Champ Manager, Pro-Ev, Football365, tabloid sports sections and Match of the Day. Quite the CV.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course, but some opinions are weightier than others, no? I mean, you don't have people taking oaths in court and swearing expert medical testimony because they have the box set of ER and have been to hospital on a number of occasions, both as an observer and active participant in the ins and outs of the healthcare system, do you?
"No, your honour, I have never once practised medicine, per se, but I like to think of myself as a 'student of the profession'."
"Proceed."
No, I'll take my chances with the guy who's been working in the profession for five decades, but thanks anyway sonny. Good hustle.
"Sure, he doesn't know what he's doing, that fella, he's ancient, he's lost it." What's that? Two games away from qualifying for a tournament we have been shy of since 1988, out of a group with Slovakia and Russia which we all believed was an extremely difficult draw from the outset?
"But he can't even speak English." His translator must be one hell of a coach.
"I'm depressed by it all, they can't play football, they don't pass the ball." This is true. Why don't we adopt the Spanish model, move from hoofy-haffa to tika-taka? Even the English get the ball down from time to time. Italy, France, Holland, Germany...come on Trap! Now, after this little bleat, scratch the surface and have a look at the club teams of those squads. Milan, Barca, Madrid, United, Bayern, Ajax, PSV, Juve, Inter, Arsenal, PSG, Liverpool...noticing a pattern here? From clubs and national leagues, these players are trained, from an early age, to play in this particular way. What this means is that a national coach can adopt that style of play and if one or two of his players drop out, he can replace them, more or less, like for like, without having to adapt or restructure his tactics.
Now, take a look at the clubs with the Irish players come from. Wolves, West Brom, Stoke, Leicester, Villa, Blackburn, Celtic for chrissakes. So a national team manager, in this instance Trap, is supposed to break players of decades of habitual football, and inculcate a rhythmic, stylish form of football during the dozen or so training sessions he takes in a year. You see, unlike Germany, we don't have the luxury of going around the Premier League and ordering clubs to train in a particular way as Klinsmann did a few years ago. We have to take what we can get in terms of footballers, and more often than not, they are not the silkiest of brothers.
"Why doesn't he play Coleman, McCarthy and Fahey? They can pass the ball!" This is true. They can, and I would love to see it, but that, in the end, would be a bonehead play. Three, possibly four, if you count McGeady (wait, maybe five or six, I am sure I left out one or two), can get the ball down and pass it. That's around 20 to 25% of the squad. How easy is it to get injured in football? To pick up suspensions? Now, following your theories, knowledge-hoarders of football lore, we have a style of football dictated by the abilities of 20% of the squad, with no-one to replace them if they get injured. No like-for-like here. No tournaments, no green army. But pretty football. Yay. The last manager we had who realised their limitations was Jack Charlton, coinciding with Ireland's greatest period of sustained success.
Eamon Dunphy slithered out the sentence that he would be ashamed to bring a child to watch that kind of football or something to that effect in the aftermath of our qualifying for the play-offs. What would a child take from watching that? Watching 11 men achieve results greater than what is expected of them. Fighting for each other, never giving up, chasing lost causes until the dying minutes, blood and sweat poured into fraternity and the honour of representing their nation. Doing their best with what God has given them and teaching that talent is not something that everyone has, but if you place your trust in others, and you have faith, patience and belief may overcome whatever natural imbalances life has pitted against you. Yeah, Eamon, I'd be ashamed to have those values instilled in my children too. Dead right.
Let us teach them of superficial beauty and the importance of looking good ahead of achieving your dreams through teamwork and the gritting of teeth. See how far that gets them. It's not the Irish way, is it Dunphy? Yes, how very inappropriate for a nation that overcame the might of the largest Empire the world had ever seen on frikkin bicycles. Was it beautiful football in 88 against England? Was it in Italia 90, when we progressed to the quarter-finals without winning a match? Did Ray Houghton score against the Italians in '94 on the back of a sweeping, two-touch move from back to front? Did he f*ck. WAKE UP!!! Support your team. Get behind them.
Those lads are on the brink of achieving something for me and for you that we have been dreaming about since Stuttgart - being there.
Two games more, and we will be. In Trap I trust.
Peadar Clancy
