Ireland set to fall for the defensive 'Trap'

Paddy Agnewgives an insight into Italy's famous coach and recalls a meeting with him.

" Il vecchio Trap", good old Trapattoni. As new managers go, Ireland could get not so much a highly experienced, much decorated coach as a national institution. Think of Bill Shankly, throw in a little Bill Nicholson and top it off with a dollop of Jack Charlton and you have him.

The 69-year-old Giovanni Trapattoni represents the old school of Italian coaching. To some extent, he is and was a gift for those Anglophonics who insist that Italian football is exclusively defensive. It is not, but "Trap" is. Even if, to be fair, it should be said that the Michel Platini-Paolo Rossi-Zibi Boniek Juventus coached by him in the 1980s played some terrific football. That, of course, was the side which "beat" Liverpool on the infamous night of Heysel diaster, a night when Trapattoni sat on the Juventus bench.

Fans from a younger generation will have it seen for themselves at the 2002 World Cup and the 2004 European Championships. As coach of a remarkably talented Italian team (basically the side that won the 2006 World Cup), Trapattoni seemed to get it expensively and defensively wrong.

Against South Korea in 2002 and against Sweden at Euro 2004 in Portugal, he gave his critics plenty of fodder when making defensive-looking substitutions in both key games at a time when Italy were leading 1-0 (midfielder Gennaro Gattuso on for striker Del Piero in South Korea, midfielders Stefano Fiore and Mauro Camoranesi on for strikers Del Piero and Antonio Cassano against Sweden in Portugal).

In the end, of course, both opponents came back into the game, South Korea eliminating Italy with a 2-1 golden goal win and Sweden earning a late 1-1 draw that effectively cost Italy a place in the quarter-finals. Those were not Trap's finest hours.

However, those disappointments cannot take from the fact that he is one of the most successful coaches of all time. His 36-year coaching record is so full of leagues titles (seven in Italy, one in Germany, one in Portugal, one in Austria) and various Cups (Intercontinental, European Cup, Uefa etc) that it fills half a page of the "Annuario Del Calcio Mondiale".

At club level, he has won it all. What is more, be it Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Benfica or, as most recently, Red Bull Salzburg (where he won last season's title), he always gets the team to play for him.

When it comes to coaching Ireland, Trapattoni will clearly have language problems, given his limited English. However, as someone capable of coaching and winning with German, Portuguese and Austrian clubs, he has been there before and will doubtless find a way around his linguistic shortcomings.

Trapattoni's loyalty to friends and players "who do the business" for him is legendary. Some years ago, I was commissioned to interview him for TV. To my surprise, I was instructed to get myself and crew up to a place called Cinisello Balsamo, an industrial hinterland of Milan, which apparently, was "Il Trap's" private hideaway.

We had the precise address but a typical Milanese March downpour made it just about impossible to recognise the car in front let alone street signs that would lead us to Trapattoni. Eventually, we pulled in at what looked like the correct address. Surely some mistake. We had pulled up in front of a busy garage, where some expensive looking Mercedes and BMWs were up on jacks. At least the people in the garage will be able to direct us onto the right road. In we walk and head for the little office, complete with hatch-window, in the corner. Excuse me, I'm looking for . . . and there he was, behind the hatch-window Trapattoni in person, smiling broadly and patiently waiting for the foreign journalist. So, what was a living legend of Italian football doing sitting in the office of an obviously busy, up market garage, minding his own business as mechanics step in and out to consult the foreman? The garage in question is owned by "Franco", a buddy with whom Trapattoni once formed a business partnership and with whom he has retained a lifelong friendship, still keeping his own private office there above the workshop. (During the subsequent World Cup when his handling of the Italian team brought fierce criticism on his head, "Il Trap" was regularily on the phone to "Franco" checking out both what the papers were saying and the national mood.)

His old fashioned good manners, his easy-going attitude and his obvious warmth struck a strong contrast with the tough, often much-agitated coach who had stomped up and down the most famous touchlines of Italy.

At the 2002 World Cup, he delighted some and scandalised others by carrying a little bottle of Holy Water with him as he sat on the Italy bench. That is the way "Trap" is, a man from another generation when good manners, saying the rosary and putting dubbin on your boots held serious sway.