Mancini keeps a cool perspective on modest pre-season fare

DUBLIN SUPER CUP:HAVING WON both their games in some style, then celebrated their overall tournament success with an enthusiasm that must have looked pretty good on television, Manchester City certainly entered into the spirit of things at the inaugural Dublin Super Cup over the weekend.

The noise outside had barely died down, though, when an entirely unflustered-looking Roberto Mancini breezed into the post-match press conference and, having been asked if all of this was encouraging from a club with an eye on the Champions League, confirmed what pretty much everyone had suspected: “No,” he said with a broad smile, “it’s not important.”

The game that clinched the trophy for his side was entertaining, with a strong City side in which David Silva looked the most outstanding player, contributing much to a game that was easy on the eye.

It was, of course, just a little short on competitive edge and Inter’s Gian Piero Gasperini accepted his side’s 3-0 defeat so magnanimously that it was clear it didn’t really matter to him either.

Overall, though, Mancini and his fellow managers will probably have left Dublin feeling they have put in a decent weekend’s work.

City provided a reminder of the ludicrous depth there is to their squad and won both games rather easily without the need to involve their most recent marquee signings.

Inter, who beat Celtic 2-0 on Saturday, coped well enough for spells yesterday despite starting some of the same players and the Scots got to romp past an Airtricity League XI that, having lost by three to City in their opening game, performed creditably for the first half yesterday. But ultimately they crumbled, conceding three soft goals in the closing five minutes or so.

It was hard on the likes of Daniel Lafferty, Joe Gamble and Daniel Kearns, all of whom did well, but the gulf in class was again abundantly clear.

Quite what to do about the league side’s involvement in this tournament is one of the more perplexing questions to emerge over the last few days. The timing of the event means that as long as the country’s best sides fare anyway well in Europe, the representative side will be without many of the local game’s leading players.

In their absence, Damien Richardson’s side was well beaten in both games and it is difficult to see how the image of the league as a whole has being enhanced by a run of results that, if last year’s outing against Manchester United is included, now amounts to three defeats in three outings with 15 goals conceded and one scored.

The manager’s claim that yesterday’s performance was a “superb advertisement” for the league appears a little far-fetched.

There have been rumblings from the organisers about replacing the league side with a fourth foreign club, but that presumably would be unpalatable for the FAI who favour an Irish dimension in the event.

Whether the organisers found the turn-out for the two days of football disheartening we may never know.

The FAI say they have a 10-year contract with the production company Endemol that promoted the event, and Endemol say they have done a whole range of deals with broadcasters around the globe who are supposed to have shown some or all of the weekend’s action in up to 160 countries. So presumably it will all happen again next year.

If there is sufficient revenue in that end of things then all is well, but it is hard to imagine much money was made by anyone on the gate receipts front with neither day attracting the hoped for attendances. Officially, the crowd was put at 22,000 yesterday and 20,000 on Saturday, although it felt like quite a lot less than that.

The FAI, who have learned a lesson or two in this department themselves of late, could do with advising their business partners on the harsh realities of Irish disposable income levels these days.

For City, Celtic and Inter, though, there are rather more glittering prizes to be fought over during the coming months, and if Mancini men really do manage to upset their neighbours with the clatter they are creating over at Eastlands then their success of the past few days might yet just manage a small a mention in the story of their remarkable ascent.