SOCCER: NEWS MANAGEMENT has been something of a obsession for the FAI for some years now and perhaps mindful that things hadn't been going too well on that front over the preceding 48 hours, Marco Tardelli tried his hand at a spot of it himself yesterday morning.
“Ask me about Simon Cox!” implored the Republic of Ireland assistant manager as reporters attempted, almost in chorus, to ask about rather less comfortable matters.
“Why do you always want to talk about the players who aren’t here,” he continued, laughing. “I prefer to talk to talk about the others and the match (against Northern Ireland) last night.”
Like manager Giovanni Trapattoni the night before at the Aviva Stadium, Tardelli relented quickly enough and answered questions about Stoke’s Marc Wilson and Jonathan Walters, neither of whom, it seems, will be joining up with the Ireland squad this side of the summer, as well as Glenn Whelan and Birmingham City’s Keith Fahey, both of whom he reckons will.
He was a little more conciliatory than his boss, though, insisting that everyone, including Wigan’s James McCarthy, Celtic’s Anthony Stokes and Wilson, can still have a future in this Irish team.
“Why not?” he asked with mock innocence. “If we call them and they come for the next game then there is not a problem.”
McCarthy might not see it that way, of course, after the way, rightly or wrongly, he has been publicly chastised and his club, Wigan, clearly doesn’t. Though Trapattoni didn’t name the midfielder on Monday when criticising a player for failing to return calls or text messages it was clear it was the 20-year-old he had in mind.
The impression was given at that stage that there had been no contact from Wigan either which rather handed the high moral ground to club manager Roberto Martinez, something the Spaniard took full advantage of when insisting that the FAI knew “very, very well” what was happening with the player.
During Tuesday night’s match the association hit back, claiming that a scan supplied by the club had failed to support the claim that the player was unfit to travel and insisting that Wigan’s medical staff had failed to respond to follow-up communications.
There was confusion too regarding the position of Wilson with initial reports that he had failed to report to Dublin without any explanation, backed up by Trapattoni’s statement that he had “disappeared”, but subsequently undermined by association official’s slightly uncertain assertion that Stoke City had been on to say all three of their players (Wilson, Whelan and Walters) had injuries of one sort or another.
Ultimately, insisted Tardelli yesterday, the rumpus was not about what Trapattoni likes to refer to as the “lidl dee-tiles”, it was about something altogether more fundamental that the 72-year-old believes is missing from his relationship with some of the younger players.
“Giovanni spoke about the behaviour of the players,” said the former World Cup winner. “He never doubted whether they were injured.”
This was blatantly at odds with the association’s line the previous evening in relation to McCarthy’s scan but Tardelli played down the difference and continued.
“The problem is not whether he comes or not. The problem is his behaviour.
“I don’t know whether he is injured or not. I believe him. He’s a young player and I hope he wants to play but . . . the players must show some respect, not just for Giovanni but for the Irish people, the journalists, Mary O’Brien (of the association’s international department who liaises with players).
“We went to Wigan; three hours in a car after Gio had come from Italy. That in itself is a sign of our respect for him.”
