TbF to TWOK heard similar stories via my pal's FAI contact re. Trapp being 'prematurely senile' which we would usually dismiss, so the tone of his story rings true.
The way it was explained was that Trapattoni thought Cox was starting every week for West Brom and scoring goals and Long was the squad player at West Brom who often times wasn't even making the bench.
He thought Marc Wilson was Keith Treacy and vice-versa.
There were a few other gems but the Cox and Long anecdote was the only really interesting thing that he parted with.
Last edited by TheOneWhoKnocks; 09/03/2014 at 10:41 PM.
Right, and when they both turned up for training and Cox was clearly not the guy playing every week, what did he do? And when Cox moved to Forest, did Trapattoni still think he was started for West Brom every week? Or, possibly, maybe he got them mixed up every now and then but when it came to picking his team he knew who he wanted. Managers mix up players' names all the time - Bobby Robson was famous for it - but they're also pretty good at judging the game when the players are right in front of them.
Last edited by TheOneWhoKnocks; 09/03/2014 at 10:49 PM.
I imagine he'd be able to tell them apart once he saw them in training and said to himself "this Cox fella hasn't won a header all day" or "this Long fella has won a lot of headers today". It's the little details that give these things away.
Are you prepared, in any shape or form, to accept that maybe you and your mate is being had on?
Trap once confused TOWK with Piers Morgan.
No Somos muchos pero estamos locos.
I don't know the player in question but my mate is good friends with him and his family going back to secondary school. We may have been had but I don't know why the player in question would make such a statement to my friend if it wasn't true. My friend was adamant that he was serious.
I'm going to ask him about it again actually.
Can you ask him if Trap has ever ate in Crackbird? I heard that he wandered in there looking for a steak sandwich and nobody, not even Tardelli, could convince him it was a chicken place.
No Somos muchos pero estamos locos.
Anybody who knows football players knows they like to wind people up - it's part of the culture of football. At least the ones that don't take themselves too seriously do anyway. Cases of confused identity aren't uncommon in football, but not on the scale your friend is suggesting. If what you're suggesting is true, Trap is the greatest manager of all time, able to put out a time consisting in part of players he doesn't even know and still make it to a major finals. The suspension of disbelief that requires is staggering.
He might have wound me up because I would have just been a random fan (and it's easy to wind me up) but my mate is actually really close with him and I don't know why he would lie to me.
I would find it hard to believe but slapstick things have happened with Wilson, Treacy, Walters, Andy Reid and Kelly so it's not by any means a wild stretch of the imagination.
I never exaggerated. Trapattoni did know all the key players. It was the fringe players whose identities he had trouble remembering.
Because it's funny! People around here wind each other up all the time and most of us don't know one another.
Look, I have no doubt that Trap does mix people up - in fact, he has done it in public as you've said. Again, look up Bobby Robson and all the mix-ups that he's been involved in. Even when he was far from old age, he was confusing his own players. Some of the stories attributed to him are probably exaggerated too, but there's a grain of truth there too. Nevertheless, Robson was a great coach who could instantly tell whether a player was doing the job or not, and he's not going to confuse two very different players like Cox and Long on the pitch, regardless of whether he confuses their names or mixes one up with the other on a particular DVD.
I don't think the player was on a wind-up (a) because of the close friendship and (b) my mate says he is the dryest sh*te this side of the Sahara.
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