Trapattoni looks to new generation for salvation

GIOVANNI TRAPATTONI said yesterday Ireland’s new generation of players can enable the team to compete more effectively at the next World Cup – if they can qualify.

He provided perhaps his starkest assessment yet of the current crew, however, when he suggested: “If I tell the truth, it would seem like I wanted to humiliate people”.

It was an entertaining end-of-tournament performance by the Italian who, like his players, seemed to have saved a little of his best till last.

He and his team, he said, were leaving these European Championships “with our heads held high,” and intent on returning stronger in the autumn for World Cup qualifiers, which will provide the opportunity for “revenge” and to “show that we were not the worst team at these European Championships.”

He brushed aside the suggestion he might be considering his position in the wake of the three straight defeats suffered by his side and also vehemently defended his tactical choices, insisting the capabilities and experience of the players available to him had dictated the choices made.

“I accept your criticisms,” he said without sounding 100 per cent sincere. “We lost. When the team is winning the people are grateful to the manager but not when it loses.

“But, as I have said, I am proud to have qualified with this group and I am proud that after 24 years we have been here.”

The “24 years” line got a couple more outings with the generally upbeat manager becoming a little exasperated he has to keep reminding people how long it had been since Ireland made it to a European finals.

Asked whether, in the wake of the team’s showing there, however, supporters should reconcile themselves to the fact that qualification might routinely be followed in future by a pinch of humiliation, the Italian insisted things could improve over the next two years.

During that time the Irish players will have to battle the likes of Germany, Sweden and Austria for a place in Brazil but the 73-year-old reckons there can be significant improvement between now and then.

“Obviously it’s a tough group, the others are high in the ranking but I think that with the young players we can be better.”

He went on to suggest: “If the players are young then we won’t need to make changes for new energy and so we can change the team technically.”

He was pretty scathing when pressed on specific formations, though, and dismissed the idea he should have changed things after having qualified on the back of one style of play.

“We built a team around this system. Now, we have ideas about the system and maybe in August [when Ireland play a friendly against Serbia in Belgrade]. But we can talk a million times about the system and it is only words.

“What are important are facts and it has to be tested because if it doesn’t fit the qualities of your players then it doesn’t work.”