Italians in London

Published : Jun 21, 2008 00:00 IST

Giovanni Trappatoni’s amazing record of six championship victories as manager of Juventus cannot be matched.

Neither Fabio Capello nor Giovanni Trappatoni attended the European Championship as active managers, rather than observers. But recently these two major figures in Italian football, over many a long year, were both in London — Capello managing England against the USA and “Trap”, the very next day, managing the Republic of Ireland team which so fortuitously beat a brisk young Colombia side on Fulham’s ground. I was present at both games, and attended the Press conferences of both men in their somewhat broken English. Capello’s at Wembley just the once, “Trap” several times, both in a London hotel and after the Craven Cottage match and in a session with me at the team’s hotel, the following Friday.

I’ve known both men for many years. Trap since 1960, in the Rome Olympic Village, where he was staying, a blond young left half, with the Italian Under-21 team. Somewhat deviously qualified, one remembers, for the supposedly amateur Olympic tournament. But the Italians tend to have ways round such problems. Asking themselves what a player must be, if the rules stated then that none could turn professional till over the age of 21, ergo, those under 21 must still be amateurs! So Trap and other such young highly professional stars as the precocious teenager, Gianny Rivera, all played for Italy. But couldn’t, in Rome, even do better than draw 2-2 with an all-amateur Great Britain side.

None of this was Trap’s fault. The following season, he gained a regular place in Milan’s midfield and won the first of his 17 caps for Italy. There would have been more had he not been injured on the verge of the 1962 World Cup in Chile. The consolation being that at least he missed the so called Battle of Santiago, a vicious affair of flying boots and fists, in which two Italians were sent off and another went off with a broken nose.

Capello I have known since 1963, when he scored one of the goals whereby, in Turin, Italy beat England for the first time for 50 years. He always impressed me with his lucid analysis of the game and it didn’t surprise me that he became a successful manager with Milan, Roma and Real Madrid. But there could be no matching Trap’s amazing record of six championships as manager of Juventus. Followed by another one with Inter, where, by contrast with his Juventus days, he fielded a team which scored freely.

Both had their European Cup successes, Capello’s the most dazzling of all when in Athens in 1994, his Milan team thrashed Barcelona 4-0 in the final. A city where, in 1983, Trap’s Juve had been less successful, losing 1-0 to Hamburg. He somewhat wryly recalled to me that Hamburg had man marked the brilliant French attacker, Michel Platini, out of the game. Two years later, it would, however, be Platini who scored the winner against Liverpool from a disputed penalty; the foul had plainly taken place outside the box. But, as Platini still insists, the result was dwarfed by the horror of the 39 Juventus fans who died in the Heysel Stadium after being crushed by largely drunken Liverpool fans.

And now? Trap, who managed Italy both in the finals of the 2002 World Cup in Japan and in the European Championship two years later in Portugal, insists, against all logic and the odds, that Ireland can qualify; though their powerful group includes Italy themselves, not to mention Bulgaria and the menace of Berbatov. Which Trap knows all too well, since Berbatov, in a match I saw, proved a real thorn in the Italian side in Portugal in 2004. Even if Italy won 2-1 that evening, it didn’t save them from elimination.

Though both those tournaments were disappointments for Italy, and there was bitter controversy over their defeats by Croatia and, on a golden goal, by the hosts South Korea in the second round, at least those Azzurri teams sparkled with stars, even if the whole was much lesser than the parts. Ireland under Jack Charlton, of course, got to the finals of the World Cup in both 1990 and 1994, but Jack was able to call on a phalanx of English born but technically Irish qualified players; Andy Townsend, Mark Lawrenson and Co.

“I’m not as handsome as him!” said Keane modestly, when the comparison with Totti was raised at one of the Irish press sessions. But nor, I feel, would he smash up his team’s dressing room as did Totti when unjustly sent off in the game against South Korea, nor spit in an opponent’s face, which ruled Totti out of the European finals’ game against Bulgaria. What Keane did do, however fortunately, was score that very early winning goal against Colombia, helped by a lucky deflection. The previous evening, England could look little better under Capello than in their previous, disappointing games and once again, Fabio seemed to be suffering from a severe case of Beckhamitis. We all know how Beckham can cross and how insidious are his right-footed free kicks, but we also know, as is frequently stated, that he cannot run, thereby seriously limiting England’s choice in attack. Yet, for the whole first half, he kept the highly promising and infinitely quicker David Bentley off the field, while in Port of Spain, against Trinidad, Bentley again came on for Beckham only at half-time. Soon showing, as he rounded the Trinidad left back and made an easy goal for Jermaine Defoe, what he can do and Beckham cannot.

That this friendly was played at all was something of a scandal. It was supposed to enlist the support of the notorious Jack Warner, kingpin of CONCACAF, for the English World Cup bid for 2018. Regardless of the fact that only months earlier Warner had viciously attacked English football, that at the last World Cup his son had operated a huge ticket scam which led to a massive repayment to FIFA and that Warner himself had initially refused to pay the players of a gallant Trinidad team what they were owed. But the joke was well and truly on the grovelling F.A. when it emerged that, as Capello had used seven substitutes rather than six — the last ludicrously and irrelevantly late — FIFA’s substitutes rules had been broken. In vain for the F.A. to protest that they had cleared it before the game with Warner himself. FIFA replied that they had no knowledge of the fact; meaning that the match could be cancelled from the official records, with no international caps for either of the teams.

A sad footnote to the game was that Dave James’ reckless and superfluous, though somewhat typical, dash out of his box and crash tackle on Kenwyne Jones put the incisive Sunderland striker out of the game with ligament trouble, for who knows how long. Calamity James strikes again; though the calamity on this occasion was, alas, Jones.

More stories from this issue

Sign in to unlock all user benefits
  • Get notified on top games and events
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign up / manage to our newsletters with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early bird access to discounts & offers to our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide to our community guidelines for posting your comment