In the beginning…

Dia dhuit everyone. I must hold my hands up on this front, I’m probably not in the best position to discuss the first two matches under Traps in blow-by-blow detail. Although I’ve since seen highlights of both matches, at the time a good friend’s 18th birthday party and work got in the way, only allowing me to see 20 extremely uninspiring minutes of the start of the Serbia match at the time. So forgive me if my analysis is at best patchwork. I promise I’ll be a good boy and watch the game against Norway in full come August.

Anyways, Serbia and Colombia. The positives that could be taken out of the matches? We’re still unbeaten under Trapattoni, so that’s nice. It would appear that we are also appearing to develop a bit of backbone when required, as displayed in the Colombia match, while also being able to score when it matters (Andy Keogh’s injury-time effort against Serbia following up Steve Finnan’s face-saver against Cyprus). As for individual performances, I’ll probably save that for another article, because particular players deserve a more in-depth look at how they performed on both occasions, so expect to see something about that in the next few days.

Negatives? Sorry, but I still can’t get away from the fact that the football is still horrendously sterile/ineffective. While at times we appeared to show some promise with the ball being played along the deck in parts during the Serbia match, and creating a few decent opportunities, we still lack the cutting edge that needs to compliment such football, and the side still has the mentality of reverting back to hoof and hope football when the chips are down. That might work once or twice in 10 attempts, and sides like Italy will not give any of the strikers a sniff playing like that.

I just hope that Trapattoni allows the players to embrace themselves a bit more, and build the confidence in their football which they’ll need to make it through qualifying and to South Africa. Granted, if we’re one up in the San Siro with a few minutes to play, no-one will give a monkey’s if the boys try to hammer the ball into the corners or preferably the Della Alpi, but long ball isn’t the way forward as a system these days, so ideally we need style rather than luck. I retain hope.

The other thing that did rankle however, was the way that we apparently sat back and tried to survive for 87 minutes against Colombia in a friendly. Sorry, but I fail to see how that is at all productive, as said before, it does prove that we seem capable to fend off sides and get a result, but this was against a weakened Colombia side in an exhibition. Important for Trapattoni to get an idea about his squad, relatively meaningless otherwise. If he truly wants to create a system whereby the side tries to play their way to victory, friendlies are the ideal time to do it. Scoring a deflected goal then sitting back for the rest of the match doesn’t fill me with an awful lot of hope. In all honesty, I would have gladly taken a draw, even a defeat, if we at least proved that we are able to trouble sides with the way we play, rather than holding out for almost the entire match. Doing it against a Colombia side missing names is one thing, trying to do it against Bulgaria and Italy in a competitive situation with their top-quality strikers won’t work, they’ll find a way through. I’m a hypocrite in that respect I suppose, I always laugh at people who want beautiful football over results, but when it comes to my lot, I want us to play our way to victory rather than survive. Weird, no? I’m sure I’ll come to some sound conclusion on what I actually want from this side in terms of performance in time, the only thing I’m sure about is that qualifying is a must. With 10 men behind the ball for most of the game, I just don’t see that happening at the moment.

I’ll leave it at that for now, but I’m sure there will be plenty more to add in the coming weeks and games, I await next month’s game in Oslo with a sense of anticipation. I know we’re good enough to take on the best, I just want proof of it in the way we play. I hope I’m proved right in the coming friendlies and qualifiers. Sliante Chugat for now everyone.