two boring 0-0 draws,ireland to win on penaltys
Did Domenech actually say Ireland were the england B’s or whatever? The lads on off the ball were saying it was a dubious mis-quote. Either way, great motivational ammo for Trap to use if someone translates the mis-quote to him correcly.
I think we’d all be happy with that…
Domenech may be a fruitloop, but he has decent, experienced players and Gerard Houllier in the background.
Brian Kerr’s assessment in the IT today, which to my mind does not make for great reading, they may be a lot stronger than they look at first glance:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2009/1020/1224257057234.html
Hope against hope…
Looks like Ribery might be out now for both legs
Larry will you pop up what you expect the French team to be in Dublin? Bit tricky to research using a itouch. Cheers
[quote=“Fitzy”]I think we’d all be happy with that…
Domenech may be a fruitloop, but he has decent, experienced players and Gerard Houllier in the background.
Brian Kerr’s assessment in the IT today, which to my mind does not make for great reading, they may be a lot stronger than they look at first glance:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2009/1020/1224257057234.html
Hope against hope…[/quote]
Only after seeing that now - crikey!
Ribery injury is confirmed.
Ribery out of Ireland play-off game
Midfielder Franck Ribery looks set to miss France’s World Cup play-off against Republic of Ireland with a knee injury.
The Bayern Munich player is likely to be sidelined for a month, which would rule him out France’s two-legged tie with the Irish in mid-November, as well as five games for his club, including a crucial Champions League fixture at home to Bordeaux.
Professor Jean-Henri Jaeger in Strasbourg confirmed Ribery has tendinitis of the patellar tendon in his left knee and needs to rest for four weeks, according to L’Equipe.
The destructive winger’s absence would be a blow for Les Bleus ahead of the games on November 14 and 18, which will determine which team will travel to South Africa next year.
That’s superb news for Ireland.
French restrict access to tickets
NOEL OREILLY
In a clear bid to avoid tickets falling into Irish hands, the French FA (FFF) have decided not to sell seats for the forthcoming World Cup qualifier on the internet or over the telephone.
Tickets for the Republic of Ireland’s meeting with France in Paris went sale at 11am (12pm French time) but will only be available for fans to buy at designated outlets across France.
It had been thought that seats would be available to purchase online as had been the case throughout Frances qualifying campaign.
However, having seen Irish fans invade the Stade de France the last time the sides met in Paris the FFF have decided to close down that route of access for Irish supporters.
At the World Cup qualifier back in 2004, about 25,000 racous Irish fans piled into the Saint-Denis venue to witness the Republic of Ireland earn a precious point with a 0-0 draw.
On this occasion, only 8,500 Irish fans will be granted entry to the Stade de France after the FFF confirmed the FAI would receive an allocation of approximately 10 per cent for the match on November 18th.
[quote=“Watch The Break”]French restrict access to tickets
NOEL O’REILLY
In a clear bid to avoid tickets falling into Irish hands, the French FA (FFF) have decided not to sell seats for the forthcoming World Cup qualifier on the internet or over the telephone.
Tickets for the Republic of Ireland’s meeting with France in Paris went sale at 11am (12pm French time) but will only be available for fans to buy at designated outlets across France.
It had been thought that seats would be available to purchase online – as had been the case throughout France’s qualifying campaign.
However, having seen Irish fans invade the Stade de France the last time the sides met in Paris the FFF have decided to close down that route of access for Irish supporters.
At the World Cup qualifier back in 2004, about 25,000 racous Irish fans piled into the Saint-Denis venue to witness the Republic of Ireland earn a precious point with a 0-0 draw.
On this occasion, only 8,500 Irish fans will be granted entry to the Stade de France after the FFF confirmed the FAI would receive an allocation of approximately 10 per cent for the match on November 18th.[/quote]
Every Irishman that goes to Paris will get a ticket if he wants one, without paying over the odds.
Decent piece about Trap from last weeks Trib
Delivery’s In The Detail
Giovanni Trapattoni’s thoroughness and footballing intelligence have brought Ireland this far and it is those finely-tuned characteristics which will be vital to our play-off hopes
Ciaran Cronin
All the small things: Giovanni Trapattoni’s eye for details has benefited Ireland’s World Cup campaign, and was the genesis for incidents such as Glenn Whelan’s goal against Italy
It’s Thursday lunchtime at FAI headquarters in Abbotstown and in a conference room, Marco Tardelli is looking at framed photo captured during the 1985 friendly between Ireland and Italy at Dalymount Park. Ronnie Whelan is the main focus of the snap but two players in blue shirts also feature and Tardelli, who actually played in the game, is trying to figure out who they are. He hums and haws but the passing Giovanni Trapattoni soon puts him straight. “Conti,” he says, pointing at the player beside Whelan, “and Rossi.” The significant thing is that the figure of Paolo Rossi is so blurred in the background, you suspect his mother would struggle to pick him out. But not Trapattoni. This man knows his players.
Rossi, you see, played for Ireland’s manager at Juventus in the early 1980s and his stance, his shape is not something Trapattoni will have forgotten. The minutiae, or “little details” as Trapattoni likes to call them, is where he comes into his own as a manager. He uses that term so often that you sometimes wonder if there’s any actual meaning behind it but when you have time to sit down and quiz him on the subject, you start to understand what he means. Trapattoni knows how a player likes to take a ball. He knows what shoulder they like to drop, or what way they like to turn. He recognises what run a player might make, or how a team defends a set-piece.
Glenn Whelan’s goal against Italy was one such example of the “little details”. Another comes from an Italian league game with Juventus, when Trapattoni noticed that the opposition wall had a tendency to jump in the air as a free-kick was taken. He therefore instructed Michel Platini to fire his first free-kick of the game along the ground. Needless to say, it whizzed underneath the wall and into the net.
These are the football pointers that set him apart as a coach but in all the talk of tactics this qualifying campaign, of full-backs not getting forward, of central-midfielders sitting deep and nothing else, of an overtly cautious attitude, of Stephen Ireland and Andy Reid, Trapattoni’s man-management abilities have practically been ignored. When you think of it, though, his aptitude in managing people, not just footballers, has been as significant in Ireland’s improvement these past 15 months as any tactical adjustment he has made.
For it is not every top manager who can work with players below the standards they are used to – think Roy Keane or Glenn Hoddle – as Trapattoni himself knows well. “What is difficult in our job is when great players become managers and can’t understand the team’s problems,” he says. “For example Platini, he started as a manager [with France] and after four or five months, I met him and he said ‘it’s not my job’. In Milan, I also had many players who become coaches but the biggest problem they all had was that they thought their players were as good as they had been. Most of them were not and they are saying ‘it’s not possible, this mistake is not possible’. But you must improve players. After training at Juventus, I took Cabrini, Gentile, and four or five international players. They stayed with me for an hour to improve crossing, technique and other parts of their game.”
Other managers, you imply from his tale, don’t have the patience to work with their players on what might be considered the basics. They don’t appear to know, either, how to talk to their players when things are going wrong. “It is important that we as coaches are cool,” says Trapattoni. “I know from the past when I played that when a coach is shouting all the time, the players can feel when he is nervous or tense. But you have to give them some confidence. Before the Italy game I preached confidence, confidence – we can score. At this moment, this Irish team are kids, they are young. It is important for them two days before a game to know the goal, to know the team and know what they have to do. You cannot shout at them. Against Italy we were missing one or two passes in midfield which is not something we normally do. They were a little bit nervous. But you can’t shout at them. I just had to [he mimics and whistles] and tell them to be a little calmer.”
There is a clear emotional intelligence employed in his methods and overall, his attitude towards the welfare of the squad is pretty holistic. A discussion on whether he would allow the wives and girlfriends of Ireland’s players to be in South Africa during the World Cup if the team were to qualify – he would, but they’d have to stay a different hotel – leads onto a debate on the merits of a footballer having sex in a World Cup environment. “Sex is positive,” he says. “When you are away 20 days with the team it is good. One night, two times, three times, four times, that is not good, no? It is not bad at all. Normally if we train for a week or 10 days, it is good also to spend time with family, with friends or with wife.”
Trapattoni appears to have this management lark covered from all angles, and as impressive as anything else in this campaign has been the way he has introduced so many news players to international football. In defence, Sen St Ledger and Eddie Nolan are now a firm part of the squad, if not the starting XI in the case of the former. In midfield, Liam Lawrence, Glenn Whelan, Keith Andrews and Martin Rowlands have all started at least one qualifier. Up front Caleb Folan, Leon Best and Noel Hunt have all played some part in Ireland’s 10 matches in Group Eight.
All told, that represents a significant blooding of players. Trapattoni might be accused of conservatism in his selections, but few Irish managers have introduced as many new faces to the set-up over the course of the campaign and achieved what they set out to achieve. Few have had to cope, either, with the loss of their best midfielder (Steven Reid) and best full-back (Steve Finnan) for the bones of the campaign. Even Damien Duff, the side’s most effective winger, has played just five of Ireland’s 10 qualifying games. The manager has juggled his resources brilliantly.
In terms of next month’s play-off, it is difficult to be optimistic but Trapattoni believes if the lessons from the draw against Italy can be learnt, Ireland have a 50-50 chance of making it to South Africa. “If it happened again [one goal ahead with five minutes to go], I think we will hold on better,” he says. “We sat down on Wednesday morning and I pointed out what we did wrong. Against Montenegro, I saw the players do the things that I told them.”
If that lesson really has been absorbed, Trapattoni’s side are certainly in with half a shout next month. Ireland have already proved they can score goals and get results away from home, and if they were to stop some of the silly concessions and solve the problem of holding onto an early lead, all is not yet lost. The manager clearly doesn’t think so. On Thursday, he carried a folder with him that carried print-outs of the squads Ireland might be facing and their results throughout the qualifying campaign. His work is already underway.
You can understand why, too. As a player, Trapattoni missed the 1962 World Cup in Chile through injury; as Italian manager in 2002 in Japan and South Korea, he feels to this day that his side were cheated out of the competition by Ecuadorian referee Byron Moreno.
It’s clear. Trapattoni and the World Cup have unfinished business.
Pleased Ribery is out though they have strength in depth there so not the blow it would be to another nation. Looking through their squad and it probably rivals any other player for player. Daunting task no matter how rocko etc try to dress it up.
Very true Lar, but Spain had an awesome squad for years too, and even Norn Irion managed to take them recently. It all comes down to attitude and management for me in the Intl game, and France are lacking in both areas. They’re formidable, sure, but they’re unbeatable.
Attitude and management play a big part without question but this is the case at all levels of football and isn’t unique tointernational football. Kerr commented that France’s attitude has been spot on in the group anyway so don’t see how this is in doubt and while the manager might not be the best one of his main functions is to motivate the players. Motivating them might be a difficult thing to do when you have Austria away in openening game of the qualifying campaign and his defiencies are shown up. Against Ireland in front of crowds in excess of 70,000 and 180 minutes away from a World Cup however I can’t see France being anything other than determined. We just have to be more determined and hopefully play excellently.
Perhaps Kerr is wrong maybe? The fact that Henry himself came out criticising the camp would lead me to believe that something may possibly be amiss there. There attitude can’t be been spot on in the group, if it were they wouldnt be in the position they’re in. A little too much stock being put in the ramblings of Brian Kerr I feel.
True enough. They didn’t do all the badly in their group though in fairness.
Steven Reid on SSN now dismissing talk of a falling out with Trap (SSN cunts, they truly havent a clue). Says Traps got some bad info on him though because he’s back training etc. Seems v confident of being fit enough for the French games. Good to hear.
Blackburn have 4 games between now and the French game. He’d want to be playing a full 90 minutes in at least 2 of them.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Barclays Premier League
Chelsea v Blackburn, 17:30
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Carling Cup
Blackburn v Peterborough, R4, 20:00
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Barclays Premier League
Man Utd v Blackburn, 17:30
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Barclays Premier League
Blackburn v Portsmouth, 15:00
Big fat Sam Allerdyce is looking for a public apology off Trap for his comments about Steven Reid…
Sam Allardyce has called for Giovanni Trapattoni to make a public apology to Steven Reid for comments he made about the Blackburn midfielder.
The Republic of Ireland manager has expressed doubts about whether Reid will ever fully recover from the knee injury that has restricted his involvement with Rovers in recent times.
Allardyce believes it is completely wrong for an international boss to make such remarks that might affect the confidence of an individual.
“The sad thing for me from the international scene is the very disappointing comments from Giovanni Trapattoni about Steven Reid,” Allardyce said on Sky Sports News.
"I think it is disgraceful that a manager from an international side comes out with such drivel and such nonsense.
“I think he should make a public apology to Steven and this football club for trying to undermine one of our contracted players who has had some really hard times recently trying to overcome this injury.”
Damaging
Reid stressed earlier this week that he had not fallen out with Trapattoni and still had ambitions to return to the Republic side.
But Allardyce does not understand why Trapattoni chose to attack one of his own players, especially when his comments were not even accurate.
“To actually wake up and see that written in the paper from the manager of his country is particularly disappointing and I think he was completely out of order,” said Allardyce.
"He was totally wrong with his statements, that is not the case with Steven, and it is very damaging for a young man who is trying his best to start playing again, secure a new contract and force his way back in the Republic of Ireland side.
“I find it totally amazing he came out with what he did.”
Trap obviously fell out with the whole clan.