Should Trapattoni manage Ireland for the 2014 World Cup Campaign?

[Closed Account 2]

Did Trapp actually get us to the Euro finals? He got us to the play-offs by virtue of coming second in a very soft group. The luck of the draw got us to the finals. Any of the other sides in the play-offs would probably have beaten us. On that score his record is no better than Mick's. We now know what a Trapp future would look like and it's a hideous spectacle of wasted talent, alienated players and dreadful football. Mick is no world-beater abd there are other options out there, but he would be greeted as a footballing saviour by most of our players and I suspect a growing number of supporters if he came back now.

I dont think the group was that soft. Russia have an impressive home record, and were semi finalists in Euro 2008. They fluffed their lines in the WC10 play offs, conceeding an injury time away goal to the Slovenes and then getting 2 men sent off in Slovenia.

Slovakia eliminated Italy at the last world cup and were only edged out 2-1 by Holland in the second round in Durban. We've seen Armenia were an improving side, playing decent football and not the easy touch they might have appeared to be on paper.

You say we were lucky to get Estonia in the play-offs and it's hard to argue with that - but equally well Mick's team was lucky to get Iran in the playoffs. Some of the other teams (Germany, Turkey, Czechs, Romania) could have given us a hard game then.

If we look at qualification we had some very poor results in key games under McCarthy. In the 1998 campaign the defeat in Bucharest was acceptable although coupled with a 1-1 at home it was dissapointing not to get more points off them. However, drawing 0-0 at home to Iceland and Lithuania, losing 3-2 in Skopje, we ended up 10 points behind Romania, and more crucially ended up 5 points behind the Scots in the "best second place" table (results against 1st, 3rd and 4th were counted). The Scots were the best second place team and so got to the WC directly. In the playoffs we were poor against Belgium in both legs and the Belgians themselves were not the hardest team we could have faced (we could have got the likes of Italy, Russia, Croatia or Yugoslavia).

The Euro 2000 and WC 2002 qualifications were better with less sloppy results and arguably in harder groups. We got good home results especially 1-0 vs Croatia and 2-1 vs Yugoslavia, but the only away victory was limping past Malta 3-2 in Valetta. Dropped points again in Skopje were our undo-ing.

[punkrocket]

:O Many of us here remember travelling long distances seeing good Irish teams losing. Give me Trap's unbeaten run away from home (the tournament aside) with a mediocre team any day of the year. Do you want not only not to be beaten away from home but also watch good football?

I've a minimum 8 hour journey for all our home games.
I'd miss Manuela though.

[Stuttgart88]

Yep, Manuela has to stay.

So, is the consensus keep Trap but hope he proves more adaptable and gets his act together on man management?

[tricky_colour]

I don't agree with all his decisions but if we fire the manager that brought us to our first major tourno in years theres something wrong.

Hopefully he can adapt to new a rejuvanated squad with a better philosophy. I won't be holding my breath though.

We got rid of Mick McCarthy soon enough

[OwlsFan]

I've a minimum 8 hour journey for all our home games.
I'd miss Manuela though.

Ahhh, home games. Pretty dire stuff there ok.

Manuela. I took a picture of my friend with Manuela as she strolled through Poznan prior to the Croatia game. Anyone interested?

[geysir]

Any good vibes towards Tardelli taking over?
That would allow Trap to save face, giving way to his protégé. Trap can maintain a respectful distance. He needs to be closer to home, less travelling. That excuse worked when he wanted to leave Benfica, there could be still some milage left on it

[SwanVsDalton]

I'd be positive on Tardelli. Danger of same old, same old approach, but Tardelli is a better communicator and knows the players better since he's essentially Trap's eyes and ears. Plus did I read on here (or on one of the papers) that he was remonstrating with Trap during the Croatia match? Like he was describing a problem and was being ignored.

Marco might retain the positives under Trap (discipline, good defence) and marry it with some freedom on the ball.

[Junior]

Manuela. I took a picture of my friend with Manuela as she strolled through Poznan prior to the Croatia game. Anyone interested?

Was it Eamon Keegan?

[osarusan]

I'd be more concerned with who will take over from Koevermans that who would take over from Trap if he left.

Our problems run deeper than an inflexible manager at senior level.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Did Trapp actually get us to the Euro finals? He got us to the play-offs by virtue of coming second in a very soft group. The luck of the draw got us to the finals. Any of the other sides in the play-offs would probably have beaten us. On that score his record is no better than Mick's. We now know what a Trapp future would look like and it's a hideous spectacle of wasted talent, alienated players and dreadful football.

Don't forget the previous play-off draw was more blatantly fixed in terms of opponents and probably outcome, latterly, once that was in question...

[mypost]

What would it take for you to question this judgement. We have just turned in the worst ever performance by a Euro finals qualifier. We disgraced ourselves and would appear to have alienated and demoralised a significant number of our most important players.

Most neutral observers recognise the gulf in our resources and record compared to Italy and Spain. Yet we "disgraced ourselves" by not beating two world champion sides with world-class players that nobody else with far greater resources, has managed to beat either.

As for the "lucky" play-off we got, we earned that luck over the past 4 years, by getting enough results to be top seeds. Otherwise we would be in the same pot as Estonia.

Despite our problems, we don't lose heavily now very often. 0-4 results are an aberration now rather than the norm. The last coach had us losing 5 in Cyprus of all places. He had already lost by 4 by that point. That's the sort of days some people want us to go back to. The moral victory rather than the major championship.

[the bear]

There is no shame in getting beaten by Spain. Its the manner of the performances that were unacceptable.

[Stuttgart88]

Man management issues, overtraining and inlexibility require scrutiny too. Everyone accepts (to varying degrees) how getting there was an achievement and that there's a gulf in class between the top nations and our level. Nobody wants to go back to the days of chaos or moral victories.

My view is that IF man management issues continue to alienate good players (if indeed we're sure they do) then that in itself minimises chances of success, and that requires change. What this change is I don't know. I'm only a punter.

Here's a seemingly trivial but actually important question: Did Marc Wilson ever return that text? The question relates more to Wilson's attitude than Trap's btw.

[tetsujin1979]

Man management issues, overtraining and inlexibility require scrutiny too. Everyone accepts (to varying degrees) how getting there was an achievement and that there's a gulf in class between the top nations and our level. Nobody wants to go back to the days of chaos or moral victories.

My view is that IF man management issues continue to alienate good players (if indeed we're sure they do) then that in itself minimises chances of success, and that requires change. What this change is I don't know. I'm only a punter.

Here's a seemingly trivial but actually important question: Did Marc Wilson ever return that text? The question relates more to Wilson's attitude than Trap's btw.

What's a little worrying to me at the moment, is that a one line yet-to-be-confirmed quote from one player has been spun out into near squad revolution in a matter of days

[paul_oshea]

No smoke without fire Tets, and its been an ingredient of the Traps recipe since he took over.

MyPost that point losing 5 and losing 4, do you mean conceding, what are you on about? we conceded 3 and 4 in 2 euro matches, so what? Your point as usual is ridiculous. We also scored 2 in that game, so what? So if you take 2 from 5 you get 3, and then its not as bad?!?! Obviously conceding 5 is not good, but not scoring and losing 4-0(and it could have been 6 or 7), is worse to imo.

New Zealand drew with Italy at the last world cup - granted a poor Italy, which we drew with, but a poor italy - they are way below Italy in the rankings. Upsets are always possible, no matter who we play, yet the manner in which we were destroyed over there, is the big problem here, and we never came close to causing any sort of an upset. It has nothing to do with beating a top tier nation, but at least perform against them is what we ask for. Stutts also points out many of the other failings too, there is a culmination of things, and everyone should be able see these.

The thing is, if trap had gone with 4-5-1 or 4-3-3, or played with gibson and andrews, and advised us to be more attacking, we might still have lost 4-0 against spain and 3-1 against Croatia, but id be pretty sure we would have had a lot more chances and more than likely scored more than one solitary goal. The system/tactics didn't work, and it could not have been any worse trying a different formation at that point.

[tetsujin1979]

Robbie Butler examines the stats from the group games for the Independent: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/co...f-3151178.html

[mypost]

MyPost that point losing 5 and losing 4, do you mean conceding, what are you on about? we conceded 3 and 4 in 2 euro matches, so what? Your point as usual is ridiculous. We also scored 2 in that game, so what? So if you take 2 from 5 you get 3, and then its not as bad?!?! Obviously conceding 5 is not good, but not scoring and losing 4-0(and it could have been 6 or 7), is worse to imo.

The thing is, if trap had gone with 4-5-1 or 4-3-3, or played with gibson and andrews, and advised us to be more attacking, we might still have lost 4-0 against spain and 3-1 against Croatia, but id be pretty sure we would have had a lot more chances and more than likely scored more than one solitary goal. The system/tactics didn't work, and it could not have been any worse trying a different formation at that point.

So we measure success now by how many chances we create, do we? As Russia showed everyone last year, you can 1 chance or 31 chances, but if the ball doesn't go in, it means nothing.

We got destroyed by better countries with better players who play for better clubs than ours, who were superior in every area of the pitch. Our system has got us where we are over the past 4 years. It's very doubtful whether changing tactics or personnel would have made any difference against that level of opposition. That's what Trap has to work with.

[geysir]

There will always be questions after we look at the performances and results at the Finals.
Rumours are being accepted as fact. Even the rumours of being overtrained are being put out as a definite contributing factor to our demise at the Euros.
Remember those rumours from another era about how our lack of training was a contributing factor?
People will believe things must be true based on something is wrong somewhere, therefore such and such a thing must be valid.
Painting Trap as some ogre might be a comfortable thought for some, but it doesn't hold water.

Trap refused to see the limitations of our game before the Finals, when by then the evidence was clear that his chosen players were not responding or able to respond to an outmanoeuvred and outnumbered midfield. He constantly stated that the players had the belief and the ability to work his system despite clear evidence to the contrary.
There is not that much to change with a squad who were capable to get to the Finals, as long as the management are prepared to recognise the failings and are prepared to change things. If Trap isn't prepared to do that, then even the Faroes will pass us off the park.

[Stuttgart88]

Robbie Butler examines the stats from the group games for the Independent: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/co...f-3151178.html

And I think everyone's sympathetic to that angle Tets, but it's not the only angle. 2 mid-table (at best) midfielders against a 5 man Spanish midfield with maurauding full backs makes no sense, especially when the man tasked with mucking in to help was Simon Cox. We had no plan to deal with Modric just as Hodgson had no plan to deal with Pirlo. Martin Samuel in the Mail today writes that Phil Jones should have been tasked with tracking Pirlo. Along similar thinking, John O'Shea might have been tasked with doing the same for us. "Might", I know. Whelan may or may not be good enough at this kind of level but when he personally appeals for a 3 man midfield I'd listen to him over and above a UCC economist.

[Stuttgart88]

We went out early in the 2007 RWC to two teams quite a bit better than us at the time, FRA and ARG. Did we just rest on our laurels and say we lost to two better teams, or did we ask questions about man management, cliques and preparation? Even my rudimentary knowledge of rugby showed me that ARG adapted to the rules in place at the time by kicking long and chasing the guy fielding the ball. A better team also outdid us tactically.