The only disappointing thing for me about Trap is that the Andy Reid situation has not been sorted. It's gone on for far too long.
Whatever went on should not have resulted a player who wants to play for us and who is an excellent passer of a ball not even being on the bench against France. When Miller pulled out, it was an ideal opportunity to bring Reid back in and give us an option in the games against France, particularly in the Paris game, when we needed a replacement for Whelan.
Honest! I am not a secret Tim nor a closet Sham - I really am a Seagull.
It's pretty clear what Dolan's game is.
The bigger the success Trapattoni is, the angrier Pat Dolan appears to get. I say appears because I don't read what he says and never saw him on the telly but he sounds like he's lost the plot.
Dolan seems to believe he and his fellow LOI managers could manage the Irish national team. What a joke. If these managers were truely good enough they would be making millions abroad.
A succession of the best LOI managers tried their luck in recent years in Scotland and England and all were abysmal failures and that was lower level clubs in England and Scotland.
If Ireland qualified for the WC and did well Dolan would just get angrier and angrier. The day anyone heeds what Dolan has to say about football will be a sad day indeed.
The players seem to want to play out of their skin for him, he has been very loyal to his system and player choices. He has given the careers of Whelan, Andrews, and Lawrence an incredible boost and hey show their appreciation of his trust on the field, Nice work il Trap.
Trap took off Duff, Lawrence and Doyle with 20 minutes to go in Dublin. The RTE panel laid into him for it at the time. I also wondered what the hell he was doing. In retrospect, it was a genius decision that took some balls to make. He realised that with Anelka's away goal, it was more important to score in Paris than in Dublin, so he saved his best attacking players for Paris. He saw the whole tie playing out in his head and calmly made the right decision. So we had a fresh Duffer in Paris who made a brilliant assist in one of the best Ireland moves ever.
And the man saw the potential in Liam Lawrence, who has been a revelation since he's been picked. Let's face it, who thought he'd be any good.
His tactical training and man management is great, he had four days with the team between Dublin and Paris and it was like a different team on the Wednesday.
Brilliant manager.
Whos Giovanni Trappetoni? I think you mean Giovanni Trapattoni?
First, one word LEGEND
Second, does anyone have a link to these stories? Would love to read them
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist thinks it will change; the realist adjusts the sails.
Well a few of us on here saw his potential a while back but then again it is easy to say that about any Irish player in the EPL & Championship. It's more difficult when you are limited to picking 22 or 23 players for a squad and have to leave other out for them.
http://foot.ie/forums/showpost.php?p...0&postcount=48
Trapattoni: The metaphor that springs to my mind is that of a student taking an exam. He could have done more during the year, maybe he left out some parts of the course, some of his homework was late and maybe his performance in class was a bit uninspiring at times, but in the big exam he was very well prepared and just missed out on the highest mark.
Stan on the other hand attended every lecture & tutorial and was an enthusiastic student but flunked the exam badly.
Trap's dignity and behaviour amidst all of the carry on last Wednesday is an example of good sportsmanship and class.
Monsieur Domeneche, Mr angry of east Anglia, the polititians, a good many of our commentators and a few people commenting on forums have a lot to learn about class from a man like Trap.
Hats off to a true gentleman. I am very glad he is our manager.
And yes, he was within a whisker of qualification... He played it just right. The team were mentally perfect on Wednesday evening. They did absolutely everything except take one of a few chances and finish France off with a second goal.
Sin é. We must learn to punish our opponents. We move on.
Let's not let this incident hang over us for another ten years, like some kind of Saipan, and act like the eternal victims. We must use it and come back stronger. We'll meet France again someday.
Thank you to Trap and the team for a great campaign.
Gimme dat
"There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet" - Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
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