Ireland To End France’s Cycle Of Success?

The Repub­lic of Ire­land will take on France in the World Cup play-offs which com­mence next week­end in what will be an intrigu­ing clash between the shrewd Ital­ian coach Gio­vanni Tra­p­at­toni and the much-maligned French national team coach Ray­mond Domenech.

Trapattoni’s record speaks for itself with suc­cess­ful spells almost every­where he coached yet his most notable job prior to tak­ing over Ire­land ended in mis­er­able fail­ure with the Azzurri. Tra­p­at­toni was uncon­vinc­ing and seemed stuck in the past using tac­tics which did not suit the abil­i­ties of the Ital­ian play­ers at his dis­posal. How­ever, since tak­ing over Ireland’s coach­ing duties, he was able to cre­ate a solid unit as evi­denced by the unde­feated run in the group stage not to men­tion con­ced­ing just eight goals in the 10 matches played. Trapattoni’s most notable results came against his home coun­try with Ire­land snatch­ing a 1–1 draw in Italy and wast­ing two points at home after a late Alberto Gilardino equaliser gave the Azzurri a share of the spoils in a feisty 2–2 encounter. He will be count­ing on ‘keeper Shay Given to try and keep a clean sheet in the first match in Ire­land before trav­el­ing to France for the return clash.

While the sched­ule does not serve the Irish well, the absence of the likes of Franck Ribery (pic­tured above), Samir Nasri and Patrick Vieira as well as David Trezeguet will work in Trapattoni’s favour. Both Ribery and Nasri are out due to injury (Arsenal’s Nasri just returned but is not fully fit) while Vieira has been over­looked due to his lim­ited appear­ances for club Inter­nazionale. As for Trezeguet, the Juven­tus striker does not seem likely to fea­ture again for Les Bleus as long as the bizarre Domenech is in charge of the national team. It is quite unfor­tu­nate con­sid­er­ing the striker’s scor­ing record with both France and Juven­tus. Despite crit­i­cism of his short­com­ings out­side the box, Trezeguet has often deliv­ered for the French, most notably when he scored the famous win­ner against the Ital­ians in the Euro 2000 Final. Domenech and Trezeguet rarely saw eye to eye and the striker’s penalty miss dur­ing the World Cup in Ger­many against none other than the Azzurri may have set Domenech in his stub­born ways to over­look the goal poacher.

It will be cru­cial for the Irish to keep a clean sheet in the first match and travel to France with­out hav­ing con­ceded any goals. With the likes of Thierry Henry, Karim Ben­zema and Nico­las Anelka spear­head­ing the attack, France will most likely be able to find the net when it hosts the Irish in the return leg on Novem­ber 18. France won the World Cup in 1998, fol­lowed that up with a dra­matic over­time win in Euro 2000 before stut­ter­ing in World Cup 2002, and then fin­ished Runners-up to Italy in the cul­mi­nat­ing match of Zine­dine Zidane’s illus­tri­ous career. It was a con­tro­ver­sial loss for the French as the leg­endary Zidane was sent-off to under­mine his country’s chances of win­ning after he had lifted the nation on his shoul­ders to Berlin.

Will an Ital­ian stand in France’s way once again as Trapattoni’s charges take on France? The dif­fer­ence this time is that miss­ing on South Africa 2010 will bring to an end a suc­cess­ful chap­ter in the his­tory of Les Bleus. It may bring back unfor­tu­nate mem­o­ries of the fail­ure wit­nessed by the tal­ented 1990s team which did not make it to USA 1994. That squad inl­cuded the likes of David Ginola, Eric Can­tona and Jean-Pierre Papin among oth­ers. Ire­land will rely heav­ily on Shay Given, an organ­ised defense and a hus­tling mid­field as well as the strik­ing instincts of Rob­bie Keane while the French will try to com­pen­sate for the absen­tees with Henry and Anelka (or Ben­zema) likely lead­ing the line. At this point it will be unre­al­is­tic to pre­dict the out­come know­ing that Ribery will be dearly missed by the French as he plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in the team’s buildup and attacks.

Tagged as: France, Giovanni Trapattoni, Italy, Karim Benzema, Nicolas Anelka, Raymond Domenech, Republic of Ireland, Robbie Keane, Shay Given, South Africa 2010, Thierry Henry, World Cup