Locker Room: Psssst! Hey mook. Want the word as it hits the street? The FAI mob are gonna appoint Giovanni Trapattoni as the next capo di tutti capi. Soon. Ish. Yeah. Real soonish.

So praise the Lord and pass the phrase books. Not since John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter and Harry Carey set out to look for Natalie Wood in The Searchershas such a prolonged epic of questing and suffering unfolded across our consciousness.

We are exhausted. Some of us more so than others. In fact when we get affirmative news of a pending coronation there are a lot of people who should then be led away to darkened rooms and encouraged to lie down and listen to soothing music.

The search by the FAI's posse of princes charming for the foot that most perfectly fits the glass slipper has been more comedic than tragic. If there was a golden pages of rinky-dink managers it might have served as the long list of applicants.

Media handling and odds-setting for the process was sub-contracted out to a range of qualified bookmakers. Several journalists and a few players have almost expired from exhaustion having campaigned like rats in heat for Terry Venables.

When the circus folds its tents it may well transpire that Giovanni's plates of meat weren't among those that the princes had in mind for the glass slipper at all at all. The princes appear, as one, to have become infatuated with the delicate paws of El Tel. Holding his nicely turned ankle and surveying the glass slipper the princes and a chorus of hacks can be heard whispering keenly, "Ooh suits you sir, suits you."

It's nearly over! I'll miss it, our lovely questing. The process has done nothing to postpone the day when the FAI are included in the OED's definition of the words "farce" and "fiasco" but really folks, it hasn't been the Siege of Leningrad. Let us not exaggerate our suffering. It hasn't been the long national nightmare that it has been made out to be. Indeed it has all added to the gaiety of the nation and I for one wish every winter could be enlivened by such an endless series of rumours and tip-offs We will have a manager in May, perhaps even in June.

Assuming he is of more than average brightness and that his experience extends beyond the reserve team at Walsall he will be able to survey our meagre resources and move forward in plenty of time for the World Cup qualifiers.

All the evidence suggests Giovanni Trapattoni is an intelligent, upstanding sort who should be well capable of assessing our little playing pool and arranging them on a football pitch in a propitious manner. And that after all is what is at stake.

The clamour and campaigning for Venables has been extraordinary and prolonged and probably counterproductive. Venables in his pomp as England coach liked to wine and dine his favoured pencil jockeys in his Kensington club, Scribes West.

The recent deification of Venables in some quarters suggests that after the remoteness of Stan, Brian Kerr and the late period Mick McCarthy several hacks have been pining for a return to the boozy conviviality which made us so successful during the Charlton era.

(Incidentally the affairs of Scribes West led one judge to describe Venables' evidence under oath as "wanton " and "not entirely reliable to put it at its most charitable" and the messy demise of the club led to a seven-year disqualification from holding directorships for Venables)

Anyway it is all by the by. The manner in which Venables has been asked to wait in a holding pattern above the landing strip for the Irish job has damaged his credibility as a viable candidate more than the long periods of mediocrity and failure which make up the bulk of his CV. It would seem clear, if we are to judge Venables by the undignified nature of his ongoing availability, that he is not at present inundated with pressing and lucrative offers for his services.

Indeed he seems to have little else to do other than to stand around and wait for the FAI to squeeze the knee of every other possible candidate. If nobody else is found to be willing well then Venables will take the FAI's hand in wedlock.

Of course just because Venables doesn't appear to have much else to do at the moment doesn't mean that he mightn't be about to get very lucky. If, heavens forfend, Giovanni Trapattoni decides that he doesn't like the cut of the FAI's jib after all or if his masters in Red Bull suddenly decide to lay a carpet of money in front of him wherever he goes, the FAI are in serious trouble.

Despite what several players and the back pages have been telling us in increasingly hysterical tones the delay in appointing a manager is neither a national crisis nor a subject of global mirth. It could all become rather distressing though if the FAI, having given us reason to believe they are wooing Trapattoni, are reduced by some stroke of misfortune to bringing Terry Venables home to meet the parents.

That would be the very time, (if I were Venables, it would be anyway) when Venables might decide to extract a little compensation for all the weeks of distress he has suffered as a dangling man. If Trapattoni falls through our fingers the pressure on the FAI to present one halfway credible name to the Irish public will become intense. Terry Venables will have all the strong cards in negotiations, be given most of what he wants and then be announced as the very man that the FAI wanted all along. Now that would be quite some way to start a new era.

The alternative scenario of course is the speedy (relative term, I know) conclusion of a deal with Trapattoni and the establishment of a new and interesting era in Irish soccer. This would undoubtedly be a good day for John Delaney whose reputation as a smart boy was somewhat dented by the Staunton era. Trapattoni would represent a declaration of vision and daring which Delaney could stand over even if it went pear-shaped and the Italian failed to do what it says on his tin.

Trapattoni is what we should aspire to. Everything else that has beemooted is what we could settle for (well I like the Jol-Hughton idea myself but . . .). Word on the same street as above is that Liam Brady won't be donning a tracksuit under any Trapattoni regime. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Brady's slightly curmudgeonly but cerebral presence on RTÉ's panel of experts makes our enjoyment all the more consistent and we are relieved that his presence as wingman to Giles and Eamo will continue. It is a bad thing though because Brady's slightly crusty professional crankiness is just what the Irish players require. Brady is old-fashioned in lots of ways, not least in his intolerance of all things namby-pamby about the modern game. The players need the odd stern reminder of what their core business is.

(Bad also because I like, at any given mention of Liam Brady's name, to recount the story of when as kids we were playing hurling up in Whitehall and the numbers on the sideline were temporarily boosted by Liam Brady's arrival. Martin Scully duly got his ear split and Liam very kindly put Martin in his car and drove him to hospital. When Liam returned he found the game had been beset by a biblical plague of boys who theatrically hit the ground with half-severed ears or at least ear-aches.) So we will have Trapattoni. Venables can hover some more. The siege of hype and worse is lifted. All is well that ends well. Isn't it JD?